Boating and biogas

Since my last post only a few days ago, the group and I have learned a lot and experienced even more. And it’s only Wednesday! On Monday, we had class and a guest speak that came in to talk to us about the management of contaminated waste sites, something that I find particularly interesting. After a thorough and detailed lecture, we were given time to work on our projects that are due later this week. While we did work on the project during this time, I couldn't help but be so excited waiting for Tuesday to come. Tuesday turned out to be an amazing day filled with boating, swimming, beach lounging and plenty of sun. We arrived at the harbor and were given very brief instructions, filling with boating jargon, on how to navigate and sail a boat. IT turned out that we really only did need a few minutes of instructions because with the help of our guide we were able to move and turn where we wanted to when we wanted to, which was somewhat of a surprise! We boated around, stopping to swim and just relaxing in the sun for hours. You can imagine how exhausted we were when we got back to the dorms and I’m almost positive that everyone passed out early.

Today we took a bus on another technical visit to a plant that does anaerobic digestion of waste, composting, recycling, landfilling and recovery of landfill gas for generation of heat and electricity. The facility was managed by Villaservice s.a.p. and they even had a wind turbine farm and solar farm on their site; it was really amazing to see all of these facilities in one location. We were given rundown of what the whole facility did, from when they receive the waste to when they place it in a landfill or produce a waste slurry after digestion and treatment. I was particularly excited to see some of the intermediate steps up close such as the trommel screen and the digester tanks, since we have learned about them in numerous classes in the past. It was also really interesting to see how, as regulations change for waste (such as what can and can't be land-filled), the plant had to adjust their processes and what they expected as products from their work, such as the collection of gas from the landfills. An example of this, which was told to us by our guide, was when the amount of organic (or food waste) lowered drastically from about 45% of the total waste down to 10-20% of the waste stream; this consequently changed how much gas they would expect from the land-filled area of their facility and was due to the mandatory separation of food waste at everyone’s home.

Overall, this week was the perfect combination of exciting and educational experiences, and it is still on Wednesday. Only one more full week here on the island and then it is back to the states!