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Created with Fabric.js 1.4.5 STEP 1: CURBSIDE RECYCLING STEP 2: A VISIT TO THE DAVIS STREETRESOURCE RECOVERY COMPLEX STEP 3: OFF TO THE COMPOSTER STEP 7: RETURN TO DAVIS STREET STEP 6: THE WAITING GAME What happens to your pumpkin after Halloween? (Assuming you recycle it, of course) STEP 5: PILE IT ON The first part of the cycle is pretty self-explanatory. You put your organics (food waste, yard waste, etc.) into your green recycling bin, and a Waste Management truck comes to your block and picks it up, adding yourdiscarded pumpkin to those of your neighbors. Now it's off to the transfer station at the Davis Street Resource Recovery Complex in San Leandro. In 2011, Waste Management completed a LEED-certified transfer center for organic waste. That's where your pumpkin will land and it was built to stave off any unseemly odors. STEP 4: SCREENING A few times a day, huge transport trucks will cometo the center to pick up about 20 tons of material.From here, they head off to composting facilities around thestate. Oakland's compostable waste ends up at acenter in Novato in Marin County. The waste will go through an initial screeningprocess to separate the big material, like pumpkins, from smaller stuff, like avocados. The pumpkins get sent to a grinder, which can stand up to tree trunks. All of the material is heaped into a volcano-shapedaerated static pile. "Aerated" means that air is forcedthrough the pile, and it gets watered too. The compost cooks in the aerated static pile for aboutthree months, depending on weather and compost conditions. During this time, the facility will sample the compost tomake sure it's reaching the right ratios of nitrogen, potassiumand phosphorous, and to check for any bad bacteria, like E. Coli. Once the compost passes a maturity test and demonstratesthat it's stable, it's ready for public consumption. If your pumpkin reaches a Waste Management compost piletoday, then that compost should be ready by, at the latest,by early February. Waste Management sells the compostfor $5 a bag or $24 a cubic yard. The company also sellsto the growers who grew your pumpkin in the first place making this a closed-loop system. To this: From this: stock.xchng By nomanack on Flickr
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