Cafe Touba in Cali

Café Touba, the high octane spiced coffee of Senegal, is offered at Cassicafe.com. Blended with Robusta beans and djar, the West African spice, it is a rich aromatic drink. Now in America at Cassicafe.comCafe Touba. Two pounds shipped free.

Ghana declares "war" on garbage

With Ghana's environmental ministry declaring war on the country's sanitation problems, a conference workshop waste management in Accra was given in late May, organized by ZoomLion Ghana Limited (ZGL) in collaboration with local as well as foreign universities and other institutions.

The program upgraded knowledge of about 50 participants in waste management, drawn from all the ten regions in the country. Among the topics treated were waste characteristics and management, waste recycling in Ghana, municipal waste management, waste management legislation in Ghana and global waste management generation patterns.

The conference also touched upon bioconversion, leachate treatment, landfill construction-Kumasi case study, introduction to petroleum and petroleum waste, waste streams in the petroleum industry, oil waste treatment and recycling and gas control and solid waste management in petroleum extraction.

According to the government's Minister of Local Government & Regional Development, Mr. Yieleh Chireh, a fundamental aspect of conventions's policy document is "the polluter pays principle" where the polluter is made to pay for environmental protection and remediation. "Those who are helping to create the problem should help to solve it," he noted. Mr. Yieleh Chireh cited electronic waste (e-waste) having a serious effect on the environment, especially water bodies near dump sites.

Mr. Frederick Rodriguez, who represented the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, in his welcome address challenged the Ghanaian citizenry to attach importance to waste management issues bordering the country. According to him, the lifestyle of the Ghanaians towards the environment has not been encouraging and, therefore, called for attitudinal change to help avert the situation.

ZoomLion Ghana Limited general manager Florence Larbi promoted a waste management system that integrates waste management with environmental benefits, economic optimization and social acceptability, combining a range of treatment options including re-use, recycling, composting, biogasification, energy recovery and sanitary land filling.

The appropriate order of preference in the management hierarchy, she said, include waste avoidance, waste reduction, waste recycling, utilization and re-use, waste treatment and sanitary waste disposal.

Of course, these are exactly the principles put in place for more than for several decades under California integrated waste management.

In vessel composting finally arrives: in Australia

In vessel composting, aerobic and anaerobic, has been a promising waste management technology for sometime. Landfill closed cell composting is one variant, tried here locally in Yolo County. Stand-alone vessels have seen varied success--mixing, batching and processing seem to prevalent obstacles. Here's a news release of a promising commercial scale launch in Australia:

"AnaeCo (ASX:ANQ) is pleased to announce the official opening of Stage 1 of the Western Metropolitan Regional Council (WMRC) project, which took place on Friday 28 November, 2008.

"The opening was conducted by Mr Bill Marmion, MLA for Nedlands, and was attended by WMRC, AnaeCo, Palisade Regional Infrastructure Fund, and interested parties from the waste management sector throughout Australia. WMRC Stage 1 comprises a single DiCOM bioconversion vessel and a material recovery (sorting) facility. AnaeCo is currently commissioning the facility, preparing it for performance trials, prior to proceeding to Stage 2 which will involve an expansion of the material recovery facility and the construction of two
additional bioconversion vessels.

"Tom Rudas, Managing Director of AnaeCo said “After years of development we are very proud and excited to have reached this milestone which as far as we are aware is a world first. The patented DiCOM System is a unique hybrid aerobic / anaerobic process which combines these two biological phases inside a single closed vessel. WMRC Stage 1 is the full scale application of the technology which has been tried and tested at pilot scale and as such represents
a breakthrough in urban waste management.”

Here's wishing them success.

Uganda town begins the most rudimentary solid waste management as health concerns rise

The clerk of Apac, Uganda's Town Council, Denis Egwel, is urging the residents to maintain cleanliness to avoid disease outbreaks. Egwel said recently that a tractor was acquired to collect waste and dump it at designated sites.He added that most households were indiscriminately throwing rubbish into the streets, causing a blockage to traffic flow. The garbage collection plastic containers were stationed in many parts of the town. He said owners of bushy plots will be punished for putting other people's lives in danger becuase they harbour mosquitos which carry malaria, a leading killer in Africa. Diseases such as cholera and dysentry result from unhygienic conditions.

California public has right to administative review of landfill permits

California solid waste law provides a hearing to "any person" charging that county landfill permits don't follow the law. SPRAWLDEF, a small environmental group wanted that hearing. Solano County refused. They brought suit to get the hearing in state superior court. Lost. Appealed. The First District Court of Appeal reversed, ordering the lower court to issue a writ of mandamus, ordering Solano County to provide the hearing. The published decision makes clear to all California counties that the public has a right to administrative review of solid waste facility permits. The case is Sustainability of Parks, Recycling and Wildlife Legal Defense Fund v. County of Solano Dept. of Resource Management 2008 WL 4725415 (Cal.App. 1 Dist., 2008).

EU follows California waste management (after 20 years)

European Union ministers on October 20 confirmed the adoption of legislation that will see EU member states obliged to recycle at least half of their household and general waste by 2020, according to International Environmental Daily. California of course adopted AB 939 in 1989 to cut in half California's waste by 2000--something largely accomplished. Perhaps the Europeans wanted to wait 20 years to see if it would work... The less-than-pioneering EU legislation also adopts a hierarchy of waste management favoring reuse, etc. etc... Done that too.

Tweeks to solid waste facility permitting passed

The governor has signed into law AB 2679 (Ruskin) fine tuning California's regulation of solid waste facility enforcement and permitting, the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989. The act provides that local enforcement agencies perform specified functions with regard to the regulation of solid waste management, including the issuance and enforcement of solid waste facilities permits. The enforcement agency can issue an administrative order requiring the owner or operator of a solid waste facility to take corrective action and to issue a cease and desist order.

This bill changes the enforcement and penalty provisions of the act to include violations of the act regarding disposal sites. It revises the procedures for the imposition of civil penalties to authorize the board or an enforcement agency to issue an order imposing a civil penalty upon a person that violates the act, a regulation adopted pursuant to the act, or an order issued under the enforcement provisions of the act applicable to a solid waste facility or a disposal site, or the terms or conditions of a solid waste facilities permit. The bill requires the board or an enforcement agency before issuing an order, except as specified, to follow specified procedures regarding notification and meeting with the owner or operator to bring the facility or site into compliance.

Under existing law, a request for a hearing stays the effect of the order pending completion of all appeals, but a request for a hearing does not stay a provision of the order, or the order as a whole, when there is an imminent and substantial threat to public health and safety or the environment, as specified. This bill would instead allow the owner or operator of a permitted solid waste facility subject to an order, in the case of extraordinary circumstances, to petition the executive director of the board to stay the order, pending the completion of specified administrative appeals pursuant to a specified procedure and would authorize a person who is not the owner or operator of such a facility to petition the board, as specified.