Zapping Germs Off Your Food

  • Researcher Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Researchers are working overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Transcript

Researchers are working
overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Food processors expose produce like lettuce to ozone for a few seconds or minutes to kill bacteria.

Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone.

Keener is a food process engineer at Purdue University.

He attaches the device to the outside of food packages – like a bag of lettuce – and applies electrodes that send high voltage through the bag.

“Visually it’s very Frankenstein-ish. It’s a safe process, there is a high voltage, but it’s similar to a spark you’d get with an electric fence.”

Keener says the ozone spends more time with the food so it kills more bacteria.

There’s a problem though – in some of their tests the device turned green spinach white.

So there are a few kinks to work out. But food companies are interested and we might see this commercialized in a year or two.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Business Trash Audits

  • Plant manager of Anheuser-Busch points out the plastic labels of the beer bottles now being recycled. (Photo by Karen Kasler)

Chain restaurants and retailers often test
their latest services and products in Columbus, Ohio
before launching them nationwide. It’s one of the
nation’s big test markets. But ‘going green’ is not
a trend that’s going well. Karen Kasler reports
recycling rates are well below the national average.
But businesses in this key market are beginning to
show more interest:

Transcript

Chain restaurants and retailers often test
their latest services and products in Columbus, Ohio
before launching them nationwide. It’s one of the
nation’s big test markets. But ‘going green’ is not
a trend that’s going well. Karen Kasler reports
recycling rates are well below the national average.
But businesses in this key market are beginning to
show more interest:


Columbus often bills itself as the nation’s test market. It’s demographics are seen as a reflection
of the nation as a whole. But this national test market is not at the front of the curve when it
comes recycling and other ‘green practices.’ For example, many companies around the country
have going green in the last few years, but businesses in Columbus are just starting to test the
waters.


John Remy works for SWACO, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio It operates the area’s
landfill. Remy has only recently noticed a sudden jump in the number of calls he’s getting every
day:


“The boss wants the business to go green, and so the employees are left to, how do I go
green? And so they call us and want to know, how do I go green? And how do I do it five
minutes before I called you?”


SWACO advises businesses to audit their waste — to dig into trash cans and dumpsters and see
how much paper, plastic, glass, cardboard, food and other material is there and can be
recycled. Some big corporations were already working on that. Columbus’ Anheuser-Busch
brewery is one of big brewer’s 12 plants nationwide. Plant manager Kevin Lee says “green beer”
is not just a St. Patrick’s Day thing here. He says it’s a way of doing business, from the way the
bottles are labeled:



“The backing off of these labels that are applied onto the Bud Light bottle, we recycle the
backing, and there was approximately 66,000 miles of backing a year that is plastic
backing that’s recycled.”


To the cans that fall off the filling lines and end up in hoppers:


“And we send those cans back to a recycling area where the cans are crushed, they’re
sent for aluminum recycling purposes…”


Lee says the idea is to save money and cut down on trash:


“Everything that is consumed off the line, whether it’s the waste beer or the
waste cans or the waste bottles or cardboard, we want to take those materials, treat them
or recycle them, so that we reduce our demand on the environment certainly, reduce our
costs, and that allows us to be the most responsible manufacturer we can be.”


Multi-million dollar automated operations can afford to smoothly snap new green technology
into their production lines, but it’s a little more hands-on in smaller companies and in non-profit
organizations.


Catholic priest David Gwinner did things the old-fashioned way at St. Paul’s parish just north of
Columbus. He stands by one of two eight-cubic-yard recycling bins outside the church offices.
And he says he started by sorting the trash on his own:


“Many days I would take the recycling, separate it and take it in my car.
Yes, in my Oldsmobile sitting over there and my dog, Margaret. And it started to be two,
three trips a day.”


After a few months of dumpster diving, Gwinner decided to organize the St. Paul’s staff in a
recycling effort. In the last year, Gwinner says everyone has gotten in on it – workers in the
administrative offices, guests in the meeting rooms, and the thousand kids in the school. Now,
the trash dumpsters are emptied three times a week instead of every day, which Gwinner says
has saved the parish 2,400 dollars over the last year. But Gwinner says it’s about more
than money. He’s preaching that this is a “partnership with creation,” and now his mission is to
get that message out to his 12,000 parishioners, many of whom own businesses:


“And if they had one or two or three pounds a day, times 12,000, times 365 days a year.
That tells the story of how huge… it’s a million tons a year that SWACO is receiving that’s
going into the ground. And they believe that a great percent of that is recyclable.”


A study a few years ago concluded 60 percent of commercial and residential trash is
recyclable, with paper and plastics the most common things thrown away. But even as
businesses are trying to take their bottom lines to zero when it comes to waste, their employees
may not be taking that attitude home. 88 percent of people in this test market town don’t
recycle. That number is nearly four times the stat from a recent Harris poll which shows the
national non-recycling average is 23 percent.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kasler.

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Trucks Sell Despite Polls

A new poll says a majority of pickup owners
support higher federal fuel economy standards,
even though those higher standards could make
trucks more expensive and less available.
Dustin Dwyer reports:

Transcript

A new poll says a majority of pickup owners
support higher federal fuel economy standards,
even though those higher standards could make
trucks more expensive and less available.
Dustin Dwyer reports:


Kevin Curtis of the National Environmental Trust says 83%
of truck owners in the poll support stricter fuel standards.


“Pickup owners really, when faced with the arguments that my pickup will
be more expensive, or, heaven forbid, my pickup won’t even be
available to me, they just didn’t believe it.”


But it’s a different story when people reach the dealer show
floor.


There, Charles Territo of the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers says more than half of all buyers still choose
trucks, SUVs and minivans that burn more gas.


“And until there’s a reason for consumers to make decisions other
than the decisions they’re making now on vehicle choice, it’s
going to be very hard to change the fleetwide fuel economy.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Saving Frogs From Extinction

Scientists warn that we’re in the middle of a mass extinction. Frogs,
toads and other amphibians are dying off at an alarming rate. Rebecca
Williams reports a group of scientists wants to build an ark to stop
the extinctions:

Transcript

Scientists warn that we’re in the middle of a mass extinction. Frogs,
toads and other amphibians are dying off at an alarming rate. Rebecca
Williams reports a group of scientists wants to build an ark to stop
the extinctions:


In the last few decades, hundreds of amphibian species have gone
extinct. And several thousand more are on the verge of extinction.
One major threat is a killer fungus that’s wiping them out. Other
threats are habitat destruction and pollution.


A group called Amphibian Ark has announced a 40 million dollar plan.
They want to build special facilities at zoos and aquariums around the
world to take in endangered amphibians and keep them alive.


Kevin Zippel is the group’s amphibian program officer:


“The amphibian extinction crisis is probably the greatest species
conservation challenge in the history of humanity in terms of the
number of species in one group that’s being impacted.”


Zippel says putting frogs and toads into zoos is not a solution. But
he says he hopes it will buy time for more research… and eventually
get the animals re-established in the wild.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Easing Eel Passage to Fresh Water

The American eel migrates from the salty Sargasso Sea into the fresh waters of the eastern U.S. and Canada. But their numbers have dropped significantly. Now, the eel is getting help from dam operators. The GLRC’s Martha Foley explains:

Transcript

The American eel migrates from the salty Sargasso Sea into the fresh waters
of the eastern US and Canada. But their numbers have dropped significantly. Now, the
eel is getting help from dam operators. The GLRC’s Martha Foley
explains:


Fifty years ago, the American eel accounted for half the biomass in Lake
Ontario. Now it’s almost gone. Scientists don’t exactly know why, but some
researchers say dams are partially to blame.


Kevin McGrath is a scientist with the New York Power Authority. He’s been
looking for ways to help the migrating eels get past a dam in Massena, New York.
The dam is jointly operated by the US and Canada. McGrath helped design a
new eel passage that opened this summer. He says the new passage is working
well:


“The thing that is really amazing us is how quickly they’re going through
the system. They’re moving through the entire system in about an hour and a
half and we’re just incredibly pleased that it’s working as well as it is.”


McGrath says he wouldn’t be surprised if the new passage – and an older
one on the Canadian side – combine to pass 30,000 eels this season.


For the GLRC, I’m Martha Foley.

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Sewage Overflows to Be Mapped

Public interest groups say, on average, more than 850
billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into U.S. waterways each year. Notifying the public of these events is sporadic, but one city has started to tell the public of when—and where—overflows occur. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Public interest groups say, on average, more than 850 billion gallons of
untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into U.S. waterways each
year. Notifying the public of these events is sporadic, but one city has
started to tell the public of when — and where — overflows occur. The
GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:


Federal guidelines say officials need to notify the public of sewage
overflows, but the rules are vague… and sometimes not followed.


Kevin Shafer is executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan
Sewage District. In a somewhat unusual move, it’s set up an online
map of area waterways that will highlight where, exactly, sewage is
dumped into the water.


Shafer says, in the past, specific information wasn’t so easy to get.


“We would notify the Public Health Department and then they would
notify everyone that there’d been an overflow. We never really
pinpointed the location, unless someone from the media or general public
called.”


Shafer says people should avoid areas where overflows have occurred
because of bacteria and viruses that could be in the water.


Meanwhile, some states in the Great Lakes region are working on
updating notification requirements about sewage overflows.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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Song Satirizes Trash Dumping

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to
your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Some states are dumping grounds for trash from other states and from
Canada. The U.S. federal courts have ruled that the garbage hauling is
interstate commerce and have protected the practice, but that doesn’t
quiet a Wisconsin musician who lives near a fast growing landfill which
takes in trash from three states.


“Thank you for your generosity. Mountains full of garbage give us one
more place to ski.”


Kevin McMullin’s song urges the other states to just send cash instead of
trash, but many pro-business legislators in some states see trash as cash.
So, when environmentalists call for higher landfill dumping fees to try to
slow the amount of garbage… the lawmaker’s song remains the same –
they vote no.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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