biodigester

Greenprint: Anaerobic Digester Nears Completion

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The Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) is pioneering an effort to turn waste into energy.

We are nearing completion of construction on our anaerobic digester, a system that will convert more than 400 tons of animal manure into renewable energy to power the Detroit Zoo’s Ruth Roby Glancy Animal Health Complex. The compost byproduct will be used on the gardens throughout the Zoo’s 125 acres, as well as donated to community gardens.

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No other zoo in the country has an anaerobic digester – the Detroit Zoo is the first to build and implement this system. Thus, a significant amount of research has gone into the planning, design and construction. The DZS has working closely with Michigan State University – graduate students recently completed a survey to determine the biogas potential of animal waste produced at the Zoo, as well as the increase of biogas production with the addition of food scraps. This provides the DZS with a good estimate of future methane generation. Not only is the methane generation great for the Zoo, because we will be able to power the animal hospital with renewable energy; but the methane that would have been released into the environment – which contributes to climate change as a greenhouse gas – will be reduced.

 

The excitement of composting waste is spreading over the Zoo. Animal care staff at the National Amphibian Conservation Center recently installed a batch-style composter in order to compost amphibian bedding and employee food waste – the resulting product will be used in the gardens surrounding Amphibiville.

Batch-style composters are relatively inexpensive and can be implemented in most backyards.  Those with large backyards could consider building their own composting area using wood pallets. The EPA offers great tips for composting at home on their website: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home.

We’d love to hear about your experiences with composting! Share your stories with us in the comments below.

– Rachel Handbury is the manager of sustainability for the Detroit Zoological Society.

Greenprint: The Zoo That Could Conserve

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Thinking globally.
Acting endlessly.
Who would?
Our Detroit Zoo.
Because it knew that it should, so it could.

The Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) recently launched a new marketing campaign that highlights the many things we do beyond the Detroit Zoo’s 125 acres to advance sustainability, wildlife conservation, animal welfare and education, as well as our impact on the community.

In ecology, sustainability is the capacity to endure; it is how biological systems remain diverse and productive indefinitely. The DZS’s Greenprint initiative was founded on the desire to lessen our ecological footprint. This unique, green roadmap guides our operations and is the plan by which we refine and improve our facilities and daily practices, develop new policies and programs and improve green literacy and action in our community.

Our extensive efforts in sustainability have received national recognition – we were named among the greenest Zoos in America by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums as well as the Best-Managed Nonprofit by Crain’s Detroit Business, focusing on our green initiatives.

The animals that we are dedicated to celebrating and saving serve as the motivation and inspiration for us to create a sustainable environment. As part of our efforts, we are offsetting our electricity use with 100% certified energy from U.S. Wind; constructing an anaerobic digester to compost more than 400 tons of animal waste annually to generate electricity that will power our animal hospital, and no longer selling bottled water in an effort to reduce plastic waste. We have also embarked upon an ambitious zero-waste initiative as part of our commitment to reducing landfill waste, thus reducing our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

We can all be part of the solution for habitat and resource conservation by keeping our precious wildlife habitats free of plastic waste. Currently, 1.8 billion plastic bags are used and discarded in America every week and an estimated one million birds, 100,000 turtles, and countless other sea animals die each year from ingesting plastic.

Small changes such as using reusable water containers and reusable bags have such a huge impact. Please join us on our Green Journey!

– Rachel Handbury is the manager of sustainability for the Detroit Zoological Society.

Greenprint: Detroit Zoo is the Greenest Zoo

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This year, the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) celebrated its 13th year of strategic planning around green efforts. Lucky 13 has proven to be our year, as we’ve just been awarded the 2015 Green Award – top honors – by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums for our sustainability initiatives. This national award recognizes that being green also makes good business practice and directly contributes to the conservation of the natural world.

This honor came on the heels of the DZS completing our bottled water phase-out effort, which is helping to keep more than 60,000 single-use plastic bottles out of landfills and the environment. Over the last three years, the DZS has also invested more than $3 million into energy efficiency projects, which results in utility costs savings of nearly $275,000 annually.

The year ahead is even more exciting as we are currently breaking ground to build the first dry biodigester in Michigan, and the first zoo-based system in the country. This biodigester will compost more than 400 tons of animal waste and organic food waste while capturing methane to be used as a renewable energy source to help power the Zoo’s animal hospital.

We are also getting our feet wet (or in this case keeping them dry) with permeable pavement sidewalks and parking lots, which diverts storm water from our sewer systems to prevent flooding and sewer overflows into our rivers and lakes.

And perhaps most exciting, we will open the new Polk Penguin Conservation Center in early 2016, which will represent our most sustainable construction work to date and will provide more than 80 penguins of four species with a state-of-the-art habitat while creating a critical discussion around climate change. The entire building is being designed to meet goals of LEED and components of the Living Building Challenge, with renewable and recycled materials, daylight harvesting through solar tubes, as well as water filtration systems helping us reach net-zero water use.

Join us on our Green Journey!

Beth Wallace is the manager of sustainability for the Detroit Zoological Society.

Greenprint: Poo at the Zoo

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Beth Wallace is the Manager of Sustainability for the Detroit Zoological Society.

Have you ever wondered what happens with all of the poo at the Detroit Zoo? With more than 2,600 animals in residence, you can probably imagine that a staggering amount of manure is generated – nearly 500 tons each year, in fact.

Patti Truesdell - ZebraAs part of its Greenprint initiative, the Detroit Zoological Society has plans to build a biodigester that will convert all of our animal manure – and other organic waste – into soil, biogas and organic liquid fertilizer. This will be the first anaerobic digester at any zoo in the U.S. and we need your support to make this project a dung deal.

How the system works:

  • Every week we will collect manure from each of our animal habitats.
  • The manure will then be placed in one of the four biodigester holding chambers. All four chambers will be sealed shut when product is not being moved.
  • Once a chamber is completely full, we will spray it with microorganisms, air-tight seal the chamber and essentially bake the material for 30-60 days.
  • While the product breaks down, methane is released and captured in a biogas bag above. The Zoo will then run that biogas to a generator at the nearby animal hospital, which will be used as a renewable energy source.
  • Once the material has completed its cycle, our landscaping team will then utilize the remaining soil and organic fertilizer throughout our 125 gardens.

Detroit Zoo BiodigesterThe biodigester will not only provide the Zoo with a full-circle approach to waste management, but it will also demonstrate to our region a practical, waste-to-energy system that could be replicated by many businesses in the area, including microbrews, farmers markets and even schools.

While we are well on our way to meeting our funding goals, we still need a little help to make this project a reality. To show your support, please visit our crowdfunding site, at Patronicity.com/DetroitZoo.

 

– Beth Wallace