Food waste feeds hospital flowers

USA Today

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ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- It starts as a blueberry pancake left on the tray of a recovering patient with no appetite for breakfast.

In 12 hours, it will become a dry, brown, dirt-like substance that can be mixed into the soil to help grow plants and flowers on the hospital grounds.

St. Cloud Hospital installed a system about four months ago to grind and dehydrate its food waste. It substantially reduces the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill, instead converting it to a nutrient-rich product beneficial to the environment. It's the first system of its kind in Minnesota and one of a small but growing number in the nation.

"We're really at the forefront," said Kathy Frenn, the hospital's director of nutrition services.

Food pulpers are becoming more common at restaurants, hospitals and schools. Typically, the end product is a wet mixture that still ends up in the landfill or down the drain. In the pulper-dehydrator system, food waste is scraped from dishes into a trough with a constantly flowing stream of water. It's "essentially a giant garbage disposal," said Paul Ruszat, the hospital's executive chef.

In the system used at St. Cloud, the mixture is transported into the pulper, which grinds it up, then into an extractor, which removes the water. It then goes into the dehydrator, where it is cooked overnight at a low temperature until it is dry, powdery and odorless. The substance can either be composted or directly worked into the soil.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 34 million tons of food waste was generated in 2010, more than any other material except paper. Less than 3% was recovered and recycled.

"We as a nation and individuals are quite good at wasting food," said Jonathan Bloom, author of the book "American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). It's not only an ethical concern and a waste of resources, but also an environmental problem, he said.

Bloom said the best solution is to reduce the amount of food waste, but composting like St. Cloud Hospital is a progressive way to deal with the waste created. Food in landfills rots quickly, creating large amounts of methane - a potent greenhouse gas with more than 20 times the global-warming potential of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.

Grinding and dehydrating food waste is gaining popularity elsewhere:

-The University of Connecticut installed a food pulper and dehydrator three years ago in one of its eight dining facilities, said Dennis Pierce, director of dining services. Since then, the university in Storrs, Conn., has purchased two more units that dehydrate the food waste directly without pulping it first. In the next six months, the university will buy two more, so all its dining facilities will have one, Pierce said.

-Columbus Regional Hospital, a 225-bed hospital in southeast Indiana, had a pulper system that ground up food waste, which was disposed of in a landfill. After the hospital was flooded in 2008 and the kitchen had to be rebuilt, it added a dehydrator. The end product still goes to a landfill, but it's reduced by about 83% in weight and about 95% in volume, said Patti Wade, a registered dietician and manager of food service. Eventually, hospital officials hope the leftover product can be reused in the community.

-The University of Maryland-College Park starting composting food waste from resident dining rooms 10 years ago in an outdoor composter. The system was so efficient that the university was running out of room to store the compost, said Joe Mullineaux, senior associate director of dining services. Four years ago, the university purchased pulpers and extractors for all food waste as well as compostable cups and napkins.

"What normally would be about 10 trash cans full of waste to be composted goes down to one," Mullineaux said.

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