It’s a tricky issue. To date I’ve not seen any real level of competence exhibited on very simple problems, like building a building that really needs to be built, then doing proper maintenance on that building once constructed so it doesn’t become unsafe and fall apart. So to think that Northampton County is capable of pioneering environmentally sound and fiscally balanced chicken manure disintegration is really pushing way beyond the limits of the current BoS or the county management team. There certainly is a way to do what you suggest I believe, but it doesn’t involve government interaction in my opinion.

http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/waste_gasification_poultry.pdf

Jim

We are NOT a waste disposal company. We go into the marketplace and buy the raw materials to make our product. While our operation is relatively small compared to the amount of waste available, it is scalable and is an environmentally sound means of handling the raw litter.

If anyone is interested in discussing this concept with me, please contact the CEO of Mighty Grow Organics through my company’s website. Just search for Mighty Grow in Fruitdale, Alabama. That way I am not promoting my company website in this comment.

I am NOT in favor of waste incineration. The link above explains what is being done in the UK. Northampton County would be the perfect place for innovative technologies like gasification etc., as we would be starting from scratch. Our economic development efforts should expand into these new territories. Let’s get out our phones and pencils and look for money for these and similar projects. Water reclamation is another technology well suited to our needs.

Whether or not levels of arsenic may still be present in chicken litter, and how they matter, can certainly be debated. From a sustainable engineering standpoint, burning poultry litter may actually produce as much or more toxic air emissions than coal plants. Analysis conducted by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources found that a 57 MW poultry litter combustion plant was permitted to emit levels of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide per unit of power generation higher than those for new coal plants. Another byproduct of burning chicken litter is dioxin (a known human carcinogen).

The liter incineration issue also speaks volumes to the political clout leveraged by Agribusiness. The technology to produce clean energy from bio-waste certainly exists, if you are willing to make the capital outlay. Waste-to-energy company Blue Sphere recently began a waste-to-energy production in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the facility will produce 5.2 megawatts of clean energy from organic food waste (stuff that usually ends up in landfills). Estimates by the National Resources Defense Council state that close to 40 percent of food is wasted in the US every year ($165 billion). Blue Sphere sells this electricity to leading electric companies through long-term power purchase agreements.

See North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Air Quality Division, “Comparison of emissions from controlled coal and biomass combustion,” Air Quality Committee Meeting, North Carolina Environmental Management Commission,Raleigh, NC, March 10, 2010, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Integrated Science
Assessment for Particulate Matter (Final Report).”

The roadside produce vendors are gone, thanks to the Highway Dept. and zoning. These served as readily available fresh food for many and as a source of income for the vendors. Even food production and distribution has become gentrified. Northampton County needs to start thinking out of the box to solve our economic and social issues. People here need good paying jobs and careers. Raising taxes on the already overtaxed and shoving zoning changes down our throats to pander to a few is not the answer. For instance, I would like to see the soon to be vacated hospital building turned into an environmental education facility.

Unfortunately, the greatest global disaster is overpopulation. It seems our war on famine and deadly disease has resulted in populations that have exponentially outgrown world resources, no matter what they may choose to eat. Even vegetarian/vegan diets have their pitfalls. Rice worldwide is heavily contaminated with arsenic, and foodstuffs must still be transported to cities and other population centers that do not have the climate, open space, or whatever for food production.

The heart of the matter is humanity itself. Concern for humanity brings to personal awareness the “global disaster” that adversely affects the lives of perhaps 3 billion people – all but the upper .00001%, if that, and interestingly, eventually even that miniscule percentage will find life precarious or somehow “less” if the rest of humanity capitulates to calamity. Already, people are dying as a consequence of climate change and other aspects of ecological changes and imbalances, while others are objecting to major changes of policy and personally unhealthful lifestyle that affect not only chickens, but all creatures, including human.

Opening one’s heart to the plight of chickens can be life changing, but suggesting it is the “heart of the matter” as if the rest of the article was beside the point, is certainly not persuasive to most people who might consider becoming vegan or vegetarian, or changing some aspect of their lives, perceptions, or consciousness – even the very general notion that at least some animals merit greater consideration. As a vegan, I frequently encounter this bias for intelligence when in the presence of diehard carnivores.

I recommend a broader outlook that transcends emotional ties to perspectives from the backyard.