Letters

DEVELOPING CONCEPT OF LARGE-SCALE WINDROW COMPOSTING

Dear Editor:

When I first started looking into composting 33 years ago, I would have welcomed the choices represented in the July 2001 BioCycle article, "Advances in Windrow Turning," covering more recent entries into this industry.

Having come from an agricultural background and having been schooled in a wide range of natural science subjects at the university, upon returning from combat after World War II, I spent nearly six years investigating the environmental impact of water development projects throughout 12 Western Plains states for the government. This attention to the proposed projects brought me into close contact with farmers and the rapidly changing farming practices. During the war, the chemical industry had been expanded and when war ceased, one of the convenient outlets for this production was use in soil treatment. I became concerned for the deterioration of soil and the quality of food produced from this simplistic approach to crop production.

Next I entered the farm building business, which maintained my contact with the soil and the people of the soil. I was on hand at the emergence of the large feedlots. To my amazement, apparently this industry had not thought out the consequences of such concentrations of livestock and the resultant wastes. The "Dr. Experts" at our institutions of higher learning and the U.S. Department of Agriculture seemed only interested in seeing how many tons of manure could be applied to an acre of soil without destroying its productivity. Attention was also given to how it could be made into building material, fuel to generate power or some other unrealistic waste of this potentially valuable material. The last thing on anybody's mind was how it could be processed and better used to restore the deteriorating soils.

Composting had been around for centuries; however, methods used were so laborious that in farming it was only done by the farmer himself and this did not fit into the changing nature of agriculture. It was also thought that quantities of fibrous organic material, such as straw, were necessary to make it work.

As I addressed these challenges, all known equipment used in farming, road building and mining was considered, and by late 1968, 1 was ready to get my feet wet. In January 1969, I began by watering and tilling beds of manure, running it through a manure spreader and lifting it with a travel loader. I proved to myself that compost could be made from straight bovine excrement without bulking materials. Through cooperation of farmer friends from my earlier building business, we got field trials out on low application rates. Soil structure was always enhanced and with larger application rates, we could grow good crops. If we could get production costs down, it would be economical for the farmer.

When I began to take stock of the gratifying results seen in these field trials, and began to look at the economics, it was obvious that a more efficient means of compost production had to be achieved. With this in mind, in 1969 I went to another former customer who operated a farm repair shop - really an ingenious village blacksmith - and we swept the floor of his shop, took chalk and began to lay out the design of the first compost turner. One of the design parameters was a machine that could be taken to the compostable material rather than taking the enormous quantities of material available to a machine and then having to remove it before more could be processed. In other words, avoiding a bottleneck in production. We concluded that a windrow should be used and a machine, which would straddle it and aerate it in place, was needed. My blacksmith friend knew of an abandoned combine that had a torque converter, which could be used to propel the machine at very low ground speeds (see photo).

During the years since the concept of developing a machine to travel to the compost windrow was first conceived in 1969, and somewhat enjoying the challenge of building a better machine, many concepts have been tried. I have worked with people far and wide that have built their own machines. Some of these people have even entered the manufacturing business. I was dissatisfied with the usual turning of piles from top to bottom and not thoroughly mixing material in the middle of the pile with that on the outer edges of the windrow. I finally came up with a drum design that effectively accomplishes this desirable result and patented it. The dozens of machines that have this drum have always received favorable comments concerning the way it aerates, mixes and piles the windrow.

My motivation for developing largescale windrow composting (and developing the first windrow machine not mentioned in the BioCycle article) was to have economically feasible compost made from our unused organic wastes to restore the soil for the betterment of the quality of crops. I am pleased that this has now become a very active field of manufacturing with many involved. It is my hope that those engaged in the important field of composting will not lose sight of the value to our soil of their product and that they will keep in mind the old saying: "Good, better, best, never let it rest until the good is better and the better is best."

Fletcher Sims, Jr.

Canyon, Texas

compcorp@arn.net

CLARIFYING THE DECONSTRUCTION PROCESS AND ITS ECONOMICS

Dear Editor:

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to William Turley's letter (September, 2001) in which he described problems with our July BioCycle article entitled "How Cost Effective is Deconstruction?" I would like to first clarify the process undertaken in the referenced study and then general issues regarding deconstruction and the demolition industries. Reuse of building materials has taken place since there were buildings. Generally, my definition of deconstruction is the "de - construction" of a building, that is disassembly, which out of necessity generally follows the reverse order of construction. Hence, the word "deconstruction." Because it is a whole-building removal process, the goal is first maximizing the recovery of reusable materials, and second, overall diversion of as much materials as possible from landfill, taking into account recycling those materials that are not readily reusable. It is also a process that must meet all local, state and Federal regulations, and in order to be feasible, it must be cost-effective based on the knowledge and skill of the deconstructor, and site-specific conditions.

The referenced study calculated the costs of deconstruction and salvage of reusable materials from six wood-framed houses, removing the structures completely from the site, in Gainesville, Florida. Removing a building can be accomplished three ways: moving it, dismantling it, or reducing it to the smallest volume possible for disposal in a landfill. The equation using the term demolition was the third case, a baseline for measuring the relative costs of deconstruction. According to Webster's dictionary, demolition is cited as "to wreck." To wreck is cited as "to destroy or damage badly; ruin 2. to tear down (a building, etc.)." I believe the term was used properly in the context of common American English.

I also do not believe there was any speculation of what the demolition industry or any particular demolition company might do in any given situation. Our study was not a political statement. There is recycling of building materials in the construction and demolition industries, and there is also a considerable amount of materials that are not reused or recycled. We asked local demolition companies how much they would bid to remove the building and if Mr. Turley would like to see them, I have a set of photographs showing how a sister building to one of the buildings we deconstructed was removed to make way for a new development. It was crushed using mechanical means and deposited in a local landfill. Unfortunately, as with many things in modern society, low tipping fees encourage disposal as a low first cost solution to building materials removal.

Deconstruction will not pay back its added labor cost on every building or in every location. Clearly local disposal fees and the quality of the salvaged materials and local markets will dictate what and when it is cost-effective. I am very glad to learn from Mr. Turley that the demolition industry is the paradigm of environmental consciousness and recycling efforts; our work is meant to act as information and education to this industry and any other sectors of the economy seeking to understand both the constraints and opportunities for deconstruction and salvage of building materials. I would hope that Mr. Turley would see as many others do, that deconstruction is an option for reducing disposal costs, managing hazardous materials, and increasing revenues for any entity that realizes its potential.

Mr. Turley claims that the equations used in the article misrepresent the demolition industry. The fundamental problem with that claim is that the study cited in the article is an economic analysis of the technique of demolition and disposal versus the technique of deconstruction and salvage on a oneto-one basis of six wood-framed houses in Gainesville, Florida. It is not and never claimed to be, a characterization of the demolition industry and its overall or even company-specific rates, of recycling. I presume that Mr. Turley would support a statistically sound characterization study of the demolition industry's recycling rates and we and many others would be delighted to conduct that characterization study for him.

Brad Guy, Associate Director Center for Construction and Environment

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida