Note: Photo will be uploaded later this week, but this idea struck me when I drove by it on the way home and I had to go with it.
Just around the corner from Hampshire, on S Maple St, there are several small farms along the road (2 of them even have ice cream stands!) These farms are mainly occupied by corn stalks and grazing cows – both of which, under human control and consumption, produce quite a bit of waste. We use only the fruit of the corn stalk, and “throw out” the other parts of the plant. To maintain cows, we have a constant cycle of planting, grazing, shitting, repeat. But that’s also what makes this “waste ecosystem” unique in comparison to cities. The waste produced from the corn stalks and cows is put directly back into the cycle to continue sustaining both – extra plant parts become compost, and manure is used as a rich soil. There is very little leftover waste, if any at all – it can all be pumped right back into the system, and without leaving a mark. Well, almost.
Like I mentioned in class the other day, a huge problem I see with waste management in general is the constant moving around that we do with the waste. It seems to reach up to a dozen locations before reaching its final resting place. Evidently, there is concern for the carbon emissions produced from the transporting of the waste. And unfortunately, even the farms are not safe from playing into this game. The distance that the waste will travel on a farm is not much more than a city block (apparently 1 city block = 1.6 acres, cool). But in that small space, the tractors that are transporting the waste are moving at a fraction of the speed of a regular on-road vehicle, and the oil the tractors run on produce tar-black smoke (most tractors use diesel). So, it appears that the farms are still producing plenty of environmentally damaging waste – but due to its state of matter, the physicality of the waste being produced on farms is not immediately noticeable.