Rocket composter: gives PCC's recycling a boost.

Rocket composter: gives PCC's recycling a boost. BEAVERTON, Ore. -- Portland Community College is proving thatcomposting and creating an effective closed loop recycling systemisn't rocket science. Last month, the college's Rock Creek Rock Creek may refer to: Communities: Rock Creek, Alabama, a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County Campus (17705 N.W.Springville Road) officially joined a select few institutions of higherlearning in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. in improving its sustainability byunveiling its new rocket composter. The rocket, which will help recyclepost-consumer waste, is the fourth of its kind in the United States, isthe only one west of the Mississippi River Mississippi RiverRiver, central U.S. It rises at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and flows south, meeting its major tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio rivers, about halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. and the lone rocket composterin the country being used for post-consumer waste like plastic and paperservice ware. "We really walk the talk," said Rock Creek PresidentDavid Rule. "People talk about sustainability, but PCC, and RockCreek in particular, are really doing it. Who else is doing this?It's the community colleges and PCC in Portland that are steppingout and being entrepreneurial by buying something and testing it." It was entirely a student-driven process to research and acquirethe rocket composter. Last year, Rock Creek students were given theopportunity to determine where money from the college's increasedenrollment (PCC has had 13 consecutive terms of enrollment growth) couldbe used to improve the college's infrastructure. As a result, thispilot project will, if successful, lead to the purchase of additionalrocket composters at all of PCC's campuses, making the college theonly institution in the nation to have that many. "A lot of us have been looking forward to this day for quiteawhile," said Jeff Christian Jeff Christian (born July 30, 1970 in Burlington, Ontario, Canada) is an ice hockey Left Winger, that has played for many teams in many leagues. , student sustainability volunteer."It speeds the process up by removing a lot of the elements thatwould slow down or interrupt the composting process. It representstechnology that is underrepresented un��der��rep��re��sent��ed?adj.Insufficiently or inadequately represented: the underrepresented minority groups, ignored by the government.and fairly new in the UnitedStates." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In essence, the rocket composter is a self-contained,continuous-cycle composting unit, Christian said. It allows dailyfeeding of service ware and the harvest of compost. To speed up theprocess, it regulates water, temperature and humidity to facilitate fourstages of the breakdown of the compost. The Rock Creek Campus already has an award-winning loop systemfeaturing red worms that break down leftover food scraps. But asChristian said, the 40,000 worms in the campus composting bins havetheir limitation and cannot break down plates or service ware. Beforethe rocket composter, the campus had to send all of its post consumerwaste to the local landfill. "The rocket represents a substantial investment by thestudents of Portland Community College to sustainable technology andwaste reduction," said Erin Stanforth, PCC sustainable practicescoordinator. "The rocket will allow PCC to compost a significantlygreater amount of material inedible by the worms." As a benefit to student learning, the rocket will be housed in aroom in Building 3. The composter, which is a long metal cylinder, willhave a data log computer on it to monitor real time sampling ofconditions inside it for use in biology, environmental science,chemistry and landscape technology classes to further their research. Gerardo Soto, managing director of NATH Sustainable Solutions,pieced together the rocket by hand for the PCC students and helped themget the system going. Its first compost was collected during the RockCreek Harvest Festival harvest festivalNoun1. a Christian church service held every year to thank God for the harvest2. any of various ceremonies celebrating the harvest in other religions on Oct. 23. Soto said PCC is way ahead of thecurve on recycling on campus and expects the rocket to be a hugecomponent in its loop system. "The rocket composter is manufactured in the U.K. where 18percent of the universities use one," Soto said. "It'svery normal over there. Not every body in the U.S. does recycling likethey do at PCC. In many other parts of the country, it's not verycommon. PCC is really leading in the U.S." By creating four stages of microbial microbialpertaining to or emanating from a microbe.microbial digestionthe breakdown of organic material, especially feedstuffs, by microbial organisms. decomposition decomposition/de��com��po��si��tion/ (de-kom?pah-zish��un) the separation of compound bodies into their constituent principles. de��com��po��si��tionn.1. , the rocket isable to compost faster and in greater volume than other technologies. Itwill fit well into the Rock Creek Campus's loop system wherestudents grow produce in the campus' learning garden for use incafeteria and then recycling pre-consumer food waste using a compostingworm bin. The loop is completed, or closed off, by using the compostproduced by the worms to fertilize the garden. "We feed the rocket every single day and the compost movesthrough the rocket and comes out into a bag at the end," Soto said."It's very simple. It isn't rocket science." BY JAMES HILL COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE