Compost

Some years ago the City of Calgary came up with a two-pronged approach to dealing with compostable waste.  The idea was to reduce the need for ever-expanding the landfill, thereby reducing cost to the City.  So the City offered citizens access to durable composters for a somewhat subsidised cost.  I think it cost me about forty dollars, a one-time cost. 

I thought it was a clever idea, so I got one.  It’s amazing how well it works.  Only in the longest cold spells in mid-winter does it ever threaten to fill to overflowing.  The stuff just rots away to nearly nothing.  My friendly neighbourhood horticulturist then harvests rich, black loam out of the bottom of the composter.  

Interestingly, landfills seal up whatever is deposited there so well that compostable waste does not compost.  The stuff lasts relatively intact for a very long time, years. 

Many years later, the City then introduced the Green Bin program, wherein compostable material can be deposited into the bin to be picked up every week or two by a City tandem axle truck that closely resembles a typical garbage truck.  The material is then taken to a huge processing plant where it is turned into at least two great products, loam and methane.  The loam is sold as black soil which it is.  The methane is managed to avoid putting this potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.  The Green Bin program costs me a fixed amount every month, whether I use the Green Bin or not. 

Thus my costs are fixed and whether I use one or the other at all or in varying amounts, the cost to me does not vary. 

With the Green Bin I have the opportunity to deal with compostable materials that compost very slowly such as bones from food waste, evergreen tree needles and seed cones, stout branches, twigs, woody garden plants and other like stuff.  Even waste food oils and fats can be composted this way without creating an odor nuisance or attracting vermin.  However, I continue to compost almost all other kitchen waste in my little composter in my back yard.  

All of this seems eminently sensible.  

However, every time I carry stuff to the composter, I am struck with the thought that I am contributing to global warming.  You see this albeit small composter is rotting food waste, generating, just as in the case of the City’s facility, loam and methane.  The loam is not an issue.  The methane is an issue.  

So how much methane does this little composter generate, not enough to maintain a small flame, is my guess.  But does it contribute more heat trap in that green house gas than is contributed by the extra carbon dioxide generated decelerating and accelerating a fifteen tonne truck?  I have some experience with these trucks and I know that breaking inertia with this kind of mass really kills fuel economy, thereby generating more carbon dioxide than would be the case where speed is maintained at a steady pace.  So all I am talking about is that extra carbon dioxide generated by stopping to pick up the Green Bin, empty it into the truck, then accelerating to get to the next Green Bin.  

Also the composter is generating methane and the truck is generating carbon dioxide.  Methane is eighty four to eighty seven times more potent as a greenhouse gas over a twenty year period.  I think that means the truck has to emit eighty four to eighty seven times as much carbon dioxide as the amount of methane the composter emits.  I think there are clever engineers who can determine exactly how much carbon dioxide is emitted by stopping and starting that truck.  I suspect there are clever scientists who can determine how much methane my composter emits.

Can I figure these things out?  Nope, not a chance.  So how do I make a decision as to which is better to use.  Incidentally, I only put the Green Bin out for collection when it is full, which has amounted to about four times per year.  Therefore the truck starts and stops for my Green Bin about four times per year.  The composter has stuff added to it almost once every day.  Of course, if I did not use the composter the Green Bin would require emptying more often.  I have no idea how much more often, but definitely stopping and starting the truck more often.

Maybe all this does not matter, after all how much contribution to global warming can a little old composter make?  As I said, I don’t know, but when I multiply this by say three hundred thousand  households, what about that volume?  Obviously I still do not know, but I do know that when we talk about multiplying by three hundred thousand, we might begin to talk about a real difference. 

Strangely, to me anyway, this crazy thought crosses my mind every time I go to the composter. Yet I still go to the composter every day without having any idea which of the two options available to me are better for the environment, which is the only consideration with a meaningful option.  

GI Tract Upset - Part 2

Wonderful folks replied.  Thank you.  You have prompted me to reply to the issues you raised by adding perspective to GI Tract Upset (Part 1 as it turns out).  There are a number of issues to be addressed, so I will do so one at a time.

1. Truckload of what kind of laxative - As a matter of fact, contrary to my earlier response to that comment, yes, I do have perhaps not a truckload of laxative but I do have some type of remedy.  I am not the only model developer who is capable of proposing remedy.  In fact, there are a great many very effective modelers and models to help remedy the supply shortage.  These are control of custody models complete with end user demand forecasting.  They take into account time factors as experienced, not just time factors planned for.  Some are absolutely brilliant at structuring supply chains to enable smooth delivery at the consumer level.  We need to patiently wait as they readapt themselves to become more and more reliable.

Certain bottlenecks have at least two causes, 1) COVID-19 stricken people, 2) market choke points controlled by business relationships as major providers in particular exercise their market power to protect themselves.

1) In the matter or container ships and other transportation facilities, imagine COVID-19 getting into a ship’s crew.  How do they protect themselves?  There is the chance that most of the crew will contract COVID-19 at the same time.  Who then operates the ship?  Our hearts must go out to these people who find themselves locked into their place of work because they cannot mix with even their families.  Sailors are particularly hard hit, many of whom have been on board without a break for perhaps two years.  The productivity of these facilities has been hit hard, making delivery much more sporadic and random. 

2) Market dominance is structured to accomplish that very goal, dominate the market.  That means these large players get first call on whatever capacity there is.  With no port facilities deliberately designed to handle pandemic conditions, over-loading will happen.  The dominant players will be thanking themselves for having the foresight to make themselves dominant players.  I know of no business process management models designed to remedy market dominance.  I believe this is always seen as the role of government. 

1) & 2) One of the main points to remember is that these situations are baked into our system of supply.  When pandemics hit, a very steep learning curve and very strong action plan must be conceptualised and realised as we must “think out of the box” to effectively address new issues.  

2. Smartasses Versus Dumbasses - As this story unfolds, it does seem highly likely that there are manipulators and manipulatees.  That is a disturbing scenario to contemplate.  However, I do not address that in my commentary. That is a story for someone else to investigate and report on. 

3. Waste production - My inclusion of waste as an issue created an expectation of an essay on the subject of waste.  Well, I only incidentally address waste in this little essay.  This is a totally fair criticism.  However, I like to include the concept of waste in all thinking even if incidentally.  It’s a little reminder to myself: society barely scratches the surface of the creativity of humankind; 30% of food production is wasted; all water in the ocean and nearly all water in mountain streams now contains microplastics and a huge array of harmful man-made chemicals; the surface of the earth is warming to the point it will not support life as we know it; the oceans are acidifying and removing support for every living thing.  All that is I believe important, but I did run the risk of leading us off the rails from the main points of the essay by including it. 

4. Harshness of the Constipation Analogy - I used the constipation metaphor because unfortunately nearly all of us can relate to the phenomenon from personal experience. 

Please do not confuse intestinal blockage with truck blockade.  There are issues about the blockade that are far beyond simple protest.  But these are not addressed here.  Simple protest is ironically a large societal issue in any case.  What are the causes of protest, of strongly felt grievance?  That is the critical issue we must address.  We do not, in fact cannot, wish to stop protest.  We must address those issues in a way that confirms that everyone, including every aggrieved person, matters to us, to our society and our government.  We must work together to correct the situation.  We must demonstrate that collaboration is effective and helps improve the quality of life each of us experiences.  We must think critically to educate ourselves and each other about our issues on any subject.  We must responsibly address issues that motivate protest if we are to ever develop into a collaborative democratic society. 

So being driven to second thought by this criticism of use of constipation as an analogy, it then occurred to me that constipation is more relevant an analogy than I first thought.  Chronic constipation is known to have carcinogenic effect.  Grievance that is busting up society, driving it to dysfunctionality, might be a societal cancer. 

5. The Steps I propose to Get Us Out of the Situation are challenged - Hmm, perhaps when I expand on these in later work,  we can discuss agreement or disagreement again.  Meanwhile I offer the following brief description.

We have two major issues facing us.  The truck blockade symbolises one.  The shortage of supply is another as well as the suggested remedies for the resulting inflation. 

The Protests - If we look to 4. above, we see what I mean about finding ways to address protest.  As a society, we must take all protest issues as legitimate.  

The Shortage of Supply - see 1. above. 

Inflation - Cost is being inflated by the dysfunctioning of our supply chains all the way from base producers to consumers.  Raising interest rates and making people poorer through austerity cannot help that situation. 

6. Thank you’s - I am profoundly grateful to every single person who read this little essay, to every single person who responded, to every single person who challenged, and to every single person who offered a simple “Thank you.”   

GI Tract Upset

 The truck blockades clarified something for me.  I see global human activity, especially economic productivity, as a population eating up the globe’s resources and turning them into stuff and waste.  Thus, I see us as a digestive system, a gastrointestinal or GI tract.

Our GI tract is suffering from constipation.  Stuff and waste is simply not getting through.  So, we have a shortage of stuff, and as a primary law of market economics tells us, shortages drive up the bidding for each unit of that short supply, thereby driving up our cost per unit without addressing the shortages.  When costs are bid higher for most of the items, we have general inflation. 

The truck blockades are intended to create inconvenience by creating shortages of supply at both the consumer and business-to-business levels.  They are succeeding in that. 

In inflationary times, conventional wisdom of many of those in charge of the supply side of society has it that we must exercise austerity in government programs while simultaneously reducing the money supply with higher interest rates.  These measures are supposed to cure our inflationary headache. 

So let’s imagine that we have applied both these measures to the current situation.   

Did they work to disperse the truck blockades?  No, and I don’t know why they would.  Austerity and tight money cannot remove anti-pandemic mandates as these measures are not relevant to a virus-driven public health emergency.  If population health is threatened, the mandates must remain.  Continuing mandates seems certain to continue to motivate anti-mandate protests.  Using these irrelevant measures as laxatives meant to clear blockages cannot be effective.  

Adding hardship to peoples’ lives by reducing affordability of essentials will raise anxiety.  Raising the cost of production capital will raise anxiety.  Our situation then worsens.  

Some public figures, pundits even, are placing the blame for the accelerating mess on  government action.  Yet, this is clearly not the case.  Pandemics begin by the laws of science.  Democratic governments are driven to respond by ensuring that citizens’ basic needs are met. That requires expenditure adequate to meet those needs. 

We must simultaneously: 1) use all the best scientific knowledge we have to prepare medical measures to quell the pandemic, 2) apply all the collaborative and educational skills we can muster to unite society to adopt lifestyle changes to quell the pandemic, 3)  develop new plans for productivity and delivery models to adapt supply chains to the new reality.  Only when the pandemic is quelled can we properly judge the relevance of austerity or tight money. 

The inflationary headache is being caused by constipation in delivery of economic output.  We must clear that constipation, then see how our heads feel.