At the end of August, one of The Ecology Center’s most popular Backyard Skills classes returns! On Saturday, August 28th from 1-3pm, Bill and Jenna will be back to teach Composting 101. In this class, students will learn the how-tos of several composting techniques and take home a fully-prepped worm bin of their own! Please register in advance as space is limited to 20 participants. Cost is $25, plus a $20 materials fee for a total of $45. Remember! Members of The Ecology Center receive a 10% discount. You can sign up here or call 949.443.4223 to register.

*Note: traditional composting bin rebates ($45) available to City of San Juan Capistrano residents who attend this class.

Last Thursday, Evan, Si Teller and I made a trip out to the Prima Deshecha Landfill to take a tour of CR&R’s recycling and composting facilities. We met up with Dean, Rachelle and Baltazar at the Materials Recovery Facility, known as MRF. MRF was designed to accept and sort 300 tons of self-haul “waste” daily. Self-haul loads are hand-sorted into metals, plastics, wood, concrete and green waste with the hope of preventing 80% of accepted materials from entering the landfill.

We had several questions for the CR&R team. Where does the wood go? It’s chipped so it can be used for mulch.

The metals? All recycled.

The greens? Sent to the green waste facility just up the road, where microbe-master, Roc, uses it to create nutrient-rich compost. Later that morning, we were lucky enough to visit the Construction & Demolition sorting machinery and see Roc’s 300 yard-long rows of compost! We also learned the Sand Canyon Landfill converts the methane gas from its site into natural gas, which CR&R uses to fuel its trucks!

With waste being such a critical global topic, it was incredible to see how it’s being handled, recycled and reused in our own backyard. Roc told us, CR&R doesn’t like the word “waste”. Like The Ecology Center, he considers it “food”. We are so grateful to Roc, Dean, Baltazar and Rachelle for taking the time to show us around the facility and giving us a glimpse into how trash can turn into treasure. As you can see from the photo above, Evan and Si found a few treasures of their own at MRF.

It’s July, month three of the Basic Needs Summer Speaker Series and The Ecology Center community will be gathering this Thursday, July 8th at 7:30pm for a double feature on WASTE! Please join us as we feature two FREE short films: “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard and “Super Use”, an episode of the acclaimed PBS series, e2. Both films highlight waste issues – the systemic problems and design-inspired solutions. Popcorn, beverages and barn owl sightings available.

We hope that these shorts films will inspire you to return to The Ecology Center on July 15th as we dig a little deeper into the waste issue as we host ecologist, author and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber as she speaks on the relationship between toxins in the environment and human health. You can register for Dr. Steingraber’s speaking engagement here.

The third engagement in The Ecology Center’s Basic Needs Summer Speaker Series is certain to provide both education and inspiration as we welcome renowned ecologist, author and cancer survivor, Dr. Sandra Steingraber. An expert on the environmental links to cancer and human health, Dr. Steingraber will be our featured speaker on Thursday, July 15th.

Steingraber’s highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment presents cancer as a human rights issue. Originally published in 1997, it was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with data from U.S. cancer registries and won praise from international media including The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, The Lancet, and The London Times. Living Downstream, the feature length documentary based on the book will be available for educational and organizational screenings in Fall 2010.

The event will be held from 6:30-9pm and will feature beverages and light fare. Registration is required, and is $15 for members and $25 for non-members. Please register online or by calling 949.443.4223.

For more on the topic of waste, please join us on July 8th at 7:30pm for a free screening of two episodes of e2, the highly acclaimed PBS series.

The Basic Needs summer speaker and film series is made possible by The Ecology Center’s partnerships with Hurley, Volcom V.Co-logical, Whole Foods Market, New Belgium Brewery, Guayaki, VitaCoco, City of San Juan Capistrano, Sambazon and Meridian Graphics.

Ecologists are quick to point out that, in nature, there is no such thing as waste. After using them as delicate little solar panels collecting energy from the sun to foster growth, a tree will drop its leaves only to use them once again as nutrients once they have decomposed into the soil. Thinking like Mama Nature, and re-evaluating what is waste, can help us live more sustainably. Take my husband’s used Cup-O-Matic coffee grounds for example. I can’t wait to put those precious grinds to good use in one of three fabulous ways…

1. Compost Addition!

My compost heap luvs it some coffee grounds. Simply toss the used grounds into your heap, tumbler, rubbermaid bin or whatever you’ve got going on in your compost world and follow up with a little water. If you haven’t got a heap, tumbler or bin, you can work the grounds directly into your own soil around your veggies. Again, follow up with a little agua. Works like a charm. Don’t take my word for it, my lettuce (remember these little guys?!) will tell you true.

2. Proper Disposal of Meds!!

By now you may have heard that aside from 100-mile wide slicks of oil, we are also contaminating our oceans in more subtle ways. Flushing unused meds down the toilet is a big pollution problem. Municipal treatment facilities cannot remove the compounds in pharmaceuticals, meaning even after wastewater is treated and returned to an ocean or lake, it still contains chemical compounds. Several studies have demonstrated that increased hormone concentrations in some bodies of water have effectively de-sexed freshwater fish. This is bad news.

If you simply toss your meds in the garbage, they will take a trip to your local landfill where they will evenutally break down and leach chemical compounds into the water table. Again, these compounds will slowly make their way to the ocean.

Well, shoot! What are you supposed to do with those meds?! The first choice is a local pharmaceutical take-back program. If you do not have one of these (most folks don’t), the EPA actually recommends mixing unused pharmaceuticals with coffee grounds, then placing them in a sealed container or plastic bag before tossing them into the garbage bin. Thank you, Cup-O-Matic!

3. Homemade Body Scrub!!!

Okay, saved the best for last here. By far, my most favorite thing to do with Hubs’ used coffee grounds is to mix them with coconut oil and lemon zest. I place the mixture in a glass jar and ¡voila! homemade body scrub for the shower. It smells coconut-y and lemon-y and espresso-y. The grounds provide a nice grit for exfoliating and the coconut oil is super moisturizing. In a glass jar, the mix will last about three weeks.

Originally posted at grounded blog.

Last Saturday over twenty participants took part in The Ecology Center’s Backyard Skills Workshop Composting: employing worms to process your garbage! The class was taught by Dr. Bill Roley and his fearless assistant, Jenna. All students learned the ins and outs of both traditional and vermicomposting and those who chose to make worms a part of their composting practice built and took home a fully-prepped worm bin. If you missed the workshop this weekend, mark your calendar for Saturday, August 28th when we’ll be offering it again!