thoughtcrumbs : january 2000

Organic waste and greenhouse gas

One thing I hadn't fully understood about municipal landfills how much food waste ends up there, and how the anaerobic conditions cause organic material to release methane. According to this explanation from the EPA, methane is 21 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And two researchers at Penn State recently found that 34% of the material going to state landfills is compostable organic material (press release).

Like many apartment dwellers in Pittsburgh, I throw away all of my food waste. I'd guess that two-thirds of my garbage is produce scraps. Living on the 5th floor (without a garden) has prevented me from composting, so I'm contributing to the creation of unnecessary methane, as well as extra CO2 from the garbage trucks needed to haul the food waste. Pennsylvania has plenty of landfill space, so the state hasn't tackled this problem.

But what if the city provided garbage disposals in all homes? Would the extra cost for installation, maintenance, and wastewater treatment be offset by savings in transportation and storage, as well as have a longterm impact on the climate? (Curbside pickup of more recyclables and compostable material would be the ideal, but that sounds even more unlikely.)

This is waaay outside my area of expertise, so I'm slowly tracking down the original sources and stats and trying to figure out what info you'd need to do the calculation. More updates here as I have them. But I'd appreciate any ideas from environmentally savvy readers out there.

Chihuly at Phipps

The Chihuly exhibit of blown glass at Phipps is stunning. (See my photos at Flickr.) Unlike his lofty chandeliers in Las Vegas, his installation here intermixes hundreds of individualy blown pieces in the flowers and ferns mere feet from the viewer, with the glass reflecting the color of the surrounding flora (and fauna, if butterflies count as fauna). On an unrelated note, doesn't this orchid look like Yosemite Sam?

Kitchen no no's

My kitchen was pretty crowded yesterday. Mom was in town and made a raspberry rhubarb crisp with fruit from her garden, and I was busily working on a rice and bean dish and some fresh corn. The jasmine was busily bubbling away in the rice cooker, and every countertop was covered with half-prepared food.

I found the only available square foot of countertop space and began shucking corn. Then I lined up an ear to chop in half, applied pressure, and heard a startlingly loud pop. Had the rice cooker blown the fuse? No, but I had partially chopped through the cord, which was hidden beneath the corn. I can't find the slice in the cord and the rice cooker continued to work, but my knife is permanently defaced (hmmm . . . now I have a tomato knife, I guess).

Apollo vs. Dionysus

Review of The Botany of Desire over in Reading.

Announcing Veggieburgh.com

One of the reasons I've been so boring around here lately is a lot of my writing time has gone to another blog. Now that there's enough content there to make it interesting, it's time for a blog debut party. Please welcome Veggieburgh, a Pittsburgh food blog that reviews vegetarian dishes at restaurants and provides recipes with local ingredients.

If you're a Pittsburgher or a foodie, feel free to submit comments or recipes there.

And I promise to write a bit more here in the future.

Eight letter word for puzzle documentary

Just saw Wordplay, a crossword puzzler documentary very reminiscent of Stefan Fatsis's exploration of Scrabble players, Word Freak. The movie includes interviews with avid crossword puzzlers Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, and the Indigo Girls. At one point Jon Stewart shows his gumption by switching from pencil to pen, and then from pen to gluestick. He also voices my inner thoughts by claiming that the New York Times puzzle is the only real puzzle; he'll occasionally do a USA Today in a hotel room, but feel dirty about it.

As a regular crossword puzzle solver who refuses anything easier than a Wednesday, I was surprised that there were so many puzzle features I was oblivious to. First, there's a theme that pervades the answers. It often changes the spelling of an answer. I'd noticed a theme occasionally (usually when it required gymnastics, like putting multiple letters or a symbol in one square), but not in every puzzle. That might explain why I have a book full of half-solved puzzles. Also, there are no two letter words. That means no memorizing of questionable two-letter words, and helps avoid the discomfort that word freaks like me feel when having to justify an OSPD-legal word like "JO" to lay friends. Finally, I learned that the puzzle editor, Will Shortz, actually does something other than host tournaments and appear on Weekend Edition. He writes about half the clues in each puzzle to make it appopriate for that day of the week.

They might not be smokers

At the They Might Be Giants concert a couple of nights ago, John and John commented on the lack of oxygen in Mr. Small's. That you could punch the air. And that you could smoke there, which was "like going back in time."

The county-wide smoking ban that was supposed to go into effect January 2nd, then May 1st, is still frustratingly on hold. There's no deadline for the ruling.

In the meantime, we'll just have touring musicians making fun of our city.