“Target Zeroing In” on Green House Gas and Operating Costs

With winter almost over, we are “Target Zeroing in” on a couple of projects that are nearing completion.

Two Down, One To Go: Make-Up Air Units Removed From Forks Market Roof

Crane removing old make-up air unit

Photo Credit:  Keith Angel

Access to your morning coffee at The Forks was blocked Monday morning as some of the final pieces in the geothermal puzzle were going into place. Two of the three rooftop units that circulate fresh air in the Forks Market were replaced with energy efficient ones. The new ones will be optimized with our geothermal system. 

In a couple weeks the third one will be replaced, and once all three units are installed and balanced, the geothermal project will be complete.

They look much bigger on the ground than they do on the roof of the Market.

Photo Credit: Keith Angel

With the geothermal retrofit, The Forks has avoided 522 metric tonnes of Green House Gas emissions. As for operating costs, we have saved just over 30% during the heating months of 2011-2012. We had a much colder winter this year compared to last so we expect some encouraging numbers.

Trillions of Microbes are Lining Up For Their Chance to Sample Food Waste Smoothies

With the flick of the “On Switch” the large blades whirled into action chopping and blending food waste collected from the Forks Market and site tenants. After a couple of minutes everything was blended into a delicious mix of food waste and yard trimmings. This mix is loaded into the Biovator™ where it will be devoured by trillions of microbes and turned into a rich compost.

For the past couple of years we’ve been struggling with an efficient way to handle the compostable garbage bags. These bags would clog up machinery and slow the composting process. With our new mixer, manufactured by a Canadian company Vertablend, we are now able to throw everything, bags and all, and blend it together.  Watch the video to see it in action.

When organic material is disposed of in a landfill it generates methane, a greenhouse gas 30x more powerful than CO2.  By composting our food waste we reduce our tipping fees at the landfill and avoid greenhouse gas emissions.