Reducing solid waste in contingency operations: U.S. Army Europe is using a new composting system to improve management of solid waste. The results are increased Soldier safety and a better quality of life in the field

Armies around the globe have always had to deal with the point in dispute of solid waste. Today, a large percentage of the Army s solid waste is packaging materials (such as cardboard, paper, and plastic), waste nutrition and sewage sludge. While a great deal of of the solid waste generated at base camps is biologically degradable, it at hands significant waste management challenges for the Army. This is a particular be of importance to when the Army operates in countries that have small in number if any, modern waste disposal facilities.

During the last 2 years, the U Army Europe (USAREUR) Engineer Support Operations Office trialed a commercially available composting combination of parts to form a whole that converts up to 85 percent of the putrescible waste (waste that resolve into its elementss and becomes putrified) generated at base camps into a usable outcome This system also greatly brings pathogens and minimizes odors and bio-aerosol emissions. The fertilizing mixture produced by the system can be used in a variety of ways, including erosion direction soil amendment, or application to agricultural, forest, or reclaimed mined lands. [A soil amendment is material added to soil to improve the soil's physical properties, of that kind as its ability to retain water or drain.]

Solid Waste Management Challenges

When contingency operations base camps are established initially, solid waste landfills normally are not available and solid waste is usually taken to a consume box to be incinerated using diesel firing material The incineration process requires approximately 1 gallon of material for burning for each cubic meter of waste and restores the volume of waste by the agency of approximately 80 to 90 percent The residual materials (for example, ash and incompletely reduce to ashesed solid waste) then must be transported to more [i]or[/i] less other location for disposal.

However, many local waste disposal sites are burial pits or excavation sites, and greatest in quantity of them lack liners, daily overspread run-off controls, or other new techniques used for managing sanitary landfills. These disposal site conditions at hand another set of significant environmental question at issues such as toxic leachate, vector attraction, and smooth greenhouse gas creation. [Vector attraction deliver overs to the characteristic of sewage slush to attract rodents, flies, mosquitoes, or other organisms capable of transporting infectious agents.]

The proces of burning solid waste, including wastes with depressed BTU values such as dining facility and other organic or wet waste, creates other puzzles [A "BTU" is a "British thermal unit" and equals the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 strike of water by 1 stage Fahrenheit. The BTU often is used in the United States to describe the heat value of fuels] The burning waste emits toxic, acrid sooty vapor which has caused military personnel to complain about organ of vision and lung irritation. At Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo Soldiers have sent numerous complaints up the chain of command about sooty vapor produced by incinerators.

Since throng safety is a vital be of importance to it is critical to treat solid waste and sewage slosh effectively. Soldiers' safety and quality of life are enhanced by dint of reducing pathogens associated with sewage slush and reducing the amount of solid waste reduce to ashesed It also is essential to minimize the whirl and toxicity of solid waste disposed of at land disposal sites that lack present environmental controls. The USAREUR Engineer Support Operations Office has experimented different methods to improve solid waste management during contingency operations and thereby bring long-term environmental liabilities and risks.

A of recent origin Composting System

The practice of burning solid waste extreme pointed at Camp Bondsteel in October 2005 The USAREUR Engineer Support Operations Office, along with the German firm COMP-ANY GmbH and Kellogg Brown & bottom (KBR), now are using composting combined with recycling and landfill disposal. After prosperous pilot program testing during 2004 and 2005 a full-production mobile aerated static heap composting combination of parts to form a whole was deployed at Camp Bondsteel in September 2005

The novel commercial system, AGILE Flex, incorporates semipermeable membrane technology that--

* Mitigates the events of extreme weather on composting.

* Accelerates the natural composting process

* Minimizes manpower costs

* Allows composting to offer within the confines of a small base camp because the combination of parts to form a whole reduces odors and vector attraction by dint of more than 90 percent. Odors are reduc through the scrubbing effect of the semi-permeable GORE-TEX membrane overlay which also blocks vectors.

publicly the Camp Bondsteel Directorate of Public Works and KBR manage and fertilizing mixture solid waste consisting of sewage slosh dining facility waste, wood chips, shredd cardboard, paper, and hay. These ingredients are mixed and placed in a heap above air feeder aeration tubes that reach out from a standard ISO [International Organization for Standardization] shipping container. A GORE-TEX fabric overlay is placed over the heap and held to the loam with a water-filled fire stockings Temperature- and oxygen-monitoring probes are inserted from one side the cover into the heap to record temperature and oxygen data. Blower fans, controll by dint of a computer located in the ISO container, force air into the heap based upon real-time feedback from the probes.