It starts as a blueberry pancake left on the tray of a 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 four months ago to grind and dehydrate its food waste. It reduces waste that ends up in a landfill, instead converting it to a nutrient-rich product that helps 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. They produce a wet mixture that still ends up in a landfill or down the drain. In the pulper-dehydrator system, food 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 dry, powdery and odorless. The substance can either be composted or directly worked into the soil.
According to the 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 food waste, but composting is a progressive way to deal with the waste created. Food in landfills rots quickly, creating 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 are expanding elsewhere:
The University of Connecticut installed a food pulper and dehydrator three years ago in one of its dining facilities, said Dennis Pierce, director of dining services. Since then, the university 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 eight 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 83% in weight and 95% in volume, said Patti Wade, food service manager. Eventually, hospital officials hope, the leftover product can be reused in the community.
The University of Maryland in College Park started composting food waste from dining rooms 10 years ago in an outdoor composter. The system was so efficient that it was running out of room to store the compost, said Joe Mullineaux, senior associate director of dining services. Four years ago, the university bought pulpers and extractors for food waste and compostable cups and napkins. "What normally would be about 10 trash cans full of waste to be composted goes down to one," Mullineaux said.
Marohn also reports for the St. Cloud Times
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