F RONTLINES
good finds
winged victory
R
oll over, Icarus, and tell Charles
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Sounding Board Though it looks like a place to store your carving knife, this wood block is actually a speaker that bounces sound waves around within its chamber—sans power—to play what comes out of your iPad or iPhone. $85, at houdsound.com
Anaerobically digesting 50 percent of the food Americans waste could power 2.5 million homes
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says Patrick Serfass, executive director of the American Biogas Council. “We can recycle the organic waste that makes up 20 to 40 percent of our garbage and turn it into renewable energy.” Digesting 50 percent of the food Americans waste, says the Environmental Protection Agency, would generate enough electricity to power 2.5 million homes. Some worry that government subsidies could create an oversize AD industry with an insatiable appetite for food. Already there is concern in the European Union, where subsidies are a powerful incentive, about the possibility that crops will be grown solely for AD purposes. Others caution that centralized industrial digestion could undermine community composting operations, which not only produce valuable fertilizer for local gardeners and landscapers but also “foster community engagement and commitment to sustainable practices,” according to David Buckel, a New York–based community composting consultant. “We need both scales. But we should do as much local composting as possible.” However the options shake out, it’s clear that the days of long-hauling massive amounts of methanegenerating organics to landfills are numbered. Let the food fight—over the energy and nutrients stored in peanut shells and potato peels—begin. Elizabeth Royte is a contributing editor to OnEarth.
1 8 onearth
winter 2013/2014
Lindbergh the news. Over the summer, a uniquely engineered flying machine made its first transcontinental flight, from San Francisco to New York City. With a wingspan that rivals that of a 747—yet weighing about as much as a Subaru Outback—the HB-SIA required a few layovers to complete its 3,500-mile trip. One thing it didn’t require, however: a single drop of fuel. The HB-SIA is the brainchild of Solar Impulse, a collaboration between a pair of Swiss businessmen and one of their country’s top technical universities. Since commissioning a feasibility study a decade ago, Solar Impulse has dedicated itself to the commercialization of solar-powered flight. The HB-SIA has already broken records for manned, solar-powered aircraft. Now admirers like Richard Branson and James Cameron are signing up as backers, hoping to be a part of aviation history: the company plans to fly its updated solar-powered plane around the —KRISTEN FRENCH world in 2015.
saving soles One of the main contributors to Indian Ocean pollution? Discarded flip-flops. Now a Nairobi-based company, Ocean Sole, is collecting up to 150,000 of them a year. Craftspeople convert them into colorful toys and sculptures in an effort that provides jobs as it helps clean the coast. ocean-sole.com
bijoux and Beyond
I
n crafting her small, shining
objects, Jes MaHarry infuses conventional materials with unconventional spirit. MaHarry’s jewelry reflects the Ojai, California–based artist’s immersion in nature, as does her commitment to sourcing only from providers who use reclaimed or recycled metals and her dedication to environmental causes, to which she donates a share of her profits. jesmaharry.com
illustration by pete ryan; right: photograph for onearth by Brian Fitzgerald
generated by the process can be captured and used to produce fuel, electricity, and heat; left behind are crumbly dregs known as digestate, which has some value as fertilizer. Across the United States, nearly 200 farms and a handful of industrial food-service operators already use small AD systems to turn slurries of animal waste or food scraps into power. Wastewater treatment plants, of course, have long enlisted microbes to digest the organic solids in human sewage, but increasingly they have been using AD technology to generate their own energy and offset electricity costs. To further boost power production, plants with excess digester capacity are starting to chase food scraps—which generate 10 to 35 times more gas than does animal or human waste. “This is a great opportunity for economic growth,”