- Author: Kat Kerlin
- Contributor: Ann King Filmer
More than a decade ago, Ruihong Zhang, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis, started working on a problem: How to turn as much organic waste as possible into as much renewable energy as possible.
Last week, on Earth Day, the university and Sacramento-based technology partner CleanWorld unveiled the UC Davis Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester (READ) at the campus' former landfill. Here, the anaerobic digestion technology Zhang invented is being used inside large, white, oxygen-deprived tanks. Bacterial microbes in the tanks feast on campus and community food and...
- Author: Rebecca Miller-Cripps
Styrofoam — referring generically to #6 expanded polystyrene foam — is a disposal headache. Extremely bulky, yet lightweight, it takes up space in the waste stream (and in landfills), but its removal doesn’t add much value to what is known as “diversion numbers.”
In 1989, California Assembly Bill 939, known as the Integrated Waste Management Act, mandated reduction (or diversion) in waste disposal: jurisdictions were required to meet a 50 percent diversion goal by the year 2000. In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 341, requiring a 75 percent reduction in disposable waste by 2020.
These goals are based on weight. So, for example, “green wastes” (lawn and...
- Author: Marissa Palin
After just experiencing my first Davis summer, I find it hard to describe anything in Davis as cool. But according to Sierra Magazine, UC Davis is just that. So much so, that the school was recently named the #1 Coolest School in the nation. Granted, they weren’t talking about the weather. Instead, they were referring to UC Davis’ environmental stewardship.
With all that UC Davis does to create and promote environmentally friendly programs and facilities, it’s no wonder the university just...
