https://11nafisher.com Lina Fisher Sat, 02 May 2020 17:22:26 +0000 https://11nafisher.com en https://11nafisher.com/Front-page Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:20:36 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Front-page <img width="2048" height="1365" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/988a218cbb2780493d3fdcbc73310cd2f88d40f4d58228a504a31ab8a8ebe3ac/me-n-stick.jpg" data-mid="68441745" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/988a218cbb2780493d3fdcbc73310cd2f88d40f4d58228a504a31ab8a8ebe3ac/me-n-stick.jpg" /> https://11nafisher.com/Video-Home Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:20:34 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Video-Home &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; ___, Texas - Official Trailer from Lina Fisher on Vimeo. A 2018 short exploring how processes of immigration and gentrification change collective senses of identity within a shared geography. What does it mean to be Texan? For the full film email lina.i.fisher@gmail.com https://11nafisher.com/Video-Galveston Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:50:20 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Video-Galveston Pops, Galveston from Lina Fisher on Vimeo. Interview with a shrimper on his boat in Galveston, TX. August 2018 https://11nafisher.com/Writing-home Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:30:21 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Writing-home The Austin Monitor 2024 Regional EPA grant will go toward mitigating I-35 construction traffic and pollutionBalancing conflicting public interests, Watershed Protection aims to promote native aquatic vegetationStakeholders urge county to hurry up on implementing legal defense at bail hearings The Texas Observer 2025 In Austin, A Rare Prosecution Over Worker Death In Trench Collapse 2023 Mental Illness Shouldn’t Land You in Jail The Austin Chronicle&nbsp; (Full author archive here) 2024Can the Austin Airport Speed Up Its Sorely Needed Expansion? Police Pepper Spray Protesters After Dispersing Impromptu Encampment for Palestine United Auto Workers Has Sights Set on TeslaDebate Heats Up Over How to Wean Austin Off Fossil FuelsBill Would Connect ERCOT to U.S. Electric GridsERCOT Says Texas Power Demand to Double by 2030, With Bitcoin to Blame 2023Why Austin Can’t Seem to Quit Its Despised Coal Plant How Much of the Colorado Should We Leave Up to Elon Musk’s Discretion?Eastside Residents Decry Cluster of Rock CrushersFirst Layoffs in Texas Tribune History Raise Questions About Future of Texas News Is Kyle’s Water Problem a Microcosm of Central Texas Drought Issues?Near Misses at Austin Airport Stem From Nationwide Issues 2022 Austin Energy’s Proposed Rate Change Draws Controversy Austin’s Animal Shelters Struggle to Uphold No-Kill Reputation in the Face of Overcrowding Sunset Commission Takes Aim at TCEQ Town Hall Calls for Quick Action to Combat Overdoses Storm Relief Org Puts Down Roots to Help Farms 2021 Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground What’s Happening, What’s Being Done, and How We Got Into This Cold Weather Catastrophe Can Texas Clean Up Its Climate Footprint? Austin Energy Still Hasn’t Fixed Problems With Utility Bill Discounts on Expensive Homes Great Springs Project Proposes A Network of Trails From Austin to San Antonio 2020 A Church and Its People On Austin’s Eastside As Wastewater Plants Fail, TCEQ Fails to Regulate Austin Mutual Aid Organizations Share Resources During COVID-19 and Beyond What Happens When Two Academics Fall in Love and Start a Farm? A Banana Peel, a Diaper, and a Plastic Bag Walk Into Austin's Composting Program2019 Rebooting Kitchen Culture With a Novel Concept: Sober Living https://11nafisher.com/Reg-Ag Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:16:45 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Reg-Ag <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c69f85016cb2b2e09fde241e989234295d9008cdf897c63875556790cb308167/line-of-goats.JPG" data-mid="68363305" border="0" alt="All photos by Lina Fisher" data-caption="All photos by Lina Fisher" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c69f85016cb2b2e09fde241e989234295d9008cdf897c63875556790cb308167/line-of-goats.JPG" /> All photos by Lina Fisher What Happens When Two Academics Fall in Love and Start a Farm?TerraPurezza Farm studies regenerative agriculture just outside Austin &nbsp; &nbsp; Tina and Orion Weldon met at Rutgers University while working on their dissertations. It was a typical first date until future plans came up. "We were both like, 'Well what do you wanna do after you get your degree?'" Tina reminisces. "'Honestly, I wanna go start a farm.' ... 'No way, me too!' ... 'But specifically a regenerative agriculture farm.' ... 'Yeah, me too!' So it just kind of skyrocketed from there." &nbsp; &nbsp; Tina was in the dietetics program, studying community public health and community nutrition. Orion was in conservation ecology, studying endangered species and their habitat requirements. Both wanted more than academia. They saw potential in the regenerative model for agriculture, to rebuild native habitats for animals and to grow nutrient-rich crops sustainably, sequestering carbon in the soil in the face of climate change. But there was a serious lack of research in that area – Orion notes that at the time, there were only four regenerative farms in the country. &nbsp; &nbsp; For two academics, ideals were important, but data was integral. "So we are an institute and a farm," Tina explains. "The last four years, we've been building the farm side, since not a lot of people know the practicalities of these methods, and we're looking forward to the institute side, where we turn that around and teach." Orion explains, "We've partnered with the National Center for Appropriate Technology [NCAT] and the Soil for Water NGO and set up a multitransect study for the impact of these practices on actual carbon sequestration and water infiltration and plant diversity and measurements of microbiota life in the soil." &nbsp; &nbsp; Regenerative agriculture, as defined by TerraPurezza's website, "is a collection of techniques that together form an approach to food production that focuses on rehabilitating soil health, rebuilding native grasslands, and restoring natural water cycles." Its goals are twofold: 1) Restore soil's water retention and sequester carbon, and 2) restore native ecosystems in the process. But for Tina and Orion, it was equally important to be a fully sustainable farm. To that end, they partner with local organizations in the Travis County community. Their largest "campus" is on Shield Ranch, a family-owned ranch with a conservation easement from the city of Austin, where they raise pigs and conduct their study. They raise chickens on Orion's father's land, and sheep and more pigs at another small property nearby. They sell their products (eggs, chicken, pork) at farmers' markets and the fine dining restaurant Apis in Spicewood. <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d10fb7f7dfcba8ef35f238d082c3aeb21c5259bd1c49c71ae3676be9f12e53b/IMG_5871.JPG" data-mid="68363306" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5d10fb7f7dfcba8ef35f238d082c3aeb21c5259bd1c49c71ae3676be9f12e53b/IMG_5871.JPG" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; When they launched TerraPurezza, Tina was a cashier at Whole Foods and Orion was unemployed. They wanted to raise pigs because they were profitable, but feed was expensive. So they started picking up food waste from Whole Foods (that couldn't be donated to food banks due to strict guidelines) to feed the pigs. They collect from the produce department, the dairy, the bakery, the prepared foods, and the value-added department – just not scraps from people's plates, to avoid a biohazard for the pigs. Part of the reason that TerraPurezza is perfect for this kind of partnership is their proximity to Austin – only 45 minutes outside city limits. "A lot of other farms are over an hour or two hours outside of Austin," says Orion. The advantage was that they could pick up the waste every day, avoiding odor and pest issues. The disadvantage was "a lot of miles on the road and a lot of carbon burned in the transportation." &nbsp; &nbsp; This environmental impact was enough for them to consider buying an electric car, and the only one that could haul anything happened to be "a Tesla Model X. Which sounds ridiculous, but it's the only thing. We now have 70,000 miles on it, and 65,000 of those have been hauling a trailer with food waste in it. We pick up about 1,500 pounds every day. The coolest part about that was that the dream was like, if we get solar panels, we will literally be picking up food waste ... on sunlight ... to feed pigs for regenerative agriculture." (As of press time, they are expecting a letter "any day now" about a federal grant for the solar panels.) "So it's all happening. This is multiplicative carbon negative, because the amount of carbon saved from food waste not off-gassing from the landfill is huge; we're sequestering carbon in the soil; and we're not emitting carbon through transportation." &nbsp; &nbsp; The first step in the process of regenerating soil is rotational grazing, where animals graze on different patches of land each day or week, consistently moving so that the patches that have been trampled and pooped on have time to yield new growth. "We like to do something we call the animal parade," Orion explains: pigs, chickens, sheep. (They've also recently added wild turkeys to the menagerie.) Manure from those animals helps soil microbiota survive and forage grow. "So because you feed pigs and chickens, you can use them to dump those nutrients [and] restart the system, which is why we call them a 'pasture reset tool.'" &nbsp; &nbsp; The next step in regenerating soil is finding a cover crop to rebuild resistance to erosion. "The native [grasses] will take up to three, even five years to start germinating after you've cast them on the ground following the pigs and/or chickens," Tina explains. So a "nurse crop" is necessary. James Brown, owner of Barton Springs Mill, provides Tina and Orion with heirloom seeds he can't use, called "overs" and "unders" (over/under the correct size for his mill). When he approached them, Orion says, "everything crystallized for me. Because if you have land that has been overgrazed by cows and goats for 50 years, it doesn't have the microbiota life to cycle the nutrients in the soil anymore, even if you try to put nutrients on it. So I thought, I can use these overs and unders as nurse plants for the future native [grasses], because they will start to punch their roots down and create these channels that infiltrate water into the soil and produce sugars that get the life cycling again." &nbsp; &nbsp; Rotational grazing replicates the natural symbiotic cycle of these ecosystems before human interference, says Orion. "If those plants just came up, they would not thrive if an animal didn't eat them. That's one of the counterintuitive things, is that they co-evolved with grazers to be eaten. If they're not eaten, they'll die." And because grazers are controlled by humans now, farmers have to mimic the threat of predators that used to force their movement. "We are basically mimicking that predator pressure with electric polywire," says Tina. "No less frequent than every two weeks." They do the same with their chicken coops every Monday, Orion pulling them manually a couple of feet and their dog keeping the chickens in line. <img width="5472" height="3648" width_o="5472" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4a2850b3a15b1ce9ec07dd5a4579232c7d380ec93d148b615ff34e00127e0876/IMG_5753.JPG" data-mid="68363307" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4a2850b3a15b1ce9ec07dd5a4579232c7d380ec93d148b615ff34e00127e0876/IMG_5753.JPG" /> &nbsp; &nbsp; After four years of effort, Tina and Orion have gotten TerraPurezza to be a working farm (in part by not paying themselves); now pivoting to the research side of the operation, they are concerned with preaching the gospel of these methods in the hope that they become widely applicable. But they realize that might be the trickiest part: "The biggest challenge facing regenerative agriculture and its realistic scalability is labor," says Tina. "The labor that's required to rotationally graze animals on a pasture is exponentially higher than a growhouse with one employee that can manage tens of thousands of animals on their own." &nbsp; &nbsp; For the farmer next door, deciding to change is the hardest part. "Essentially, they have to recover one portion of their land first." They would need a "sacrificial area," a portion of land for the animals to tear up for longer than usual so the remaining land can recover. But that would require more input costs, like hay for feed, which is extremely expensive. "That's a lot to ask, and we're not going to [ask] because we understand the financial realities. If you wanna change their mind that this is a good direction to go, you have to meet them pretty close to where they already are and show them the real steps they can take, not the lofty, bucolic, 'wouldn't this be wonderful' idea." &nbsp; &nbsp; For Tina and Orion, what it boils down to is government subsidies, which are currently skewed in support of commercial agriculture. "You don't necessarily go to the senators and say, 'Hey, in the next farm bill we want you to switch the subsidies of the big guys and go to regenerative agriculture,' because that'll be fought [and] the bill will fail. However, if there is a carbon accounting system put into place, you could create a new subsidy out of nowhere because of carbon tax. We are already starting to get preliminary data in how much carbon that would sequester depending on rainfall and landscape." &nbsp; &nbsp; Orion and Tina – trained to be skeptical – know that the kind of serendipitous partnerships and grueling individual work put into TerraPurezza will need financial and popular support to be scalable. &nbsp; &nbsp; "And that's why we need this data," says Tina. "So that we can actually build a structure for a program like this." https://11nafisher.com/Sober-living Sat, 25 Apr 2020 22:23:29 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Sober-living <img width="800" height="533" width_o="800" height_o="533" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c53116b9842607e76cf28916489a845cc8d50aebf3da85e556657fdc6fea3690/callie.jpg" data-mid="68474441" border="0" alt="Holy Roller Executive Chef and owner Callie Speer (Photo by Shelley Hiam)" data-caption="Holy Roller Executive Chef and owner Callie Speer (Photo by Shelley Hiam)" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/c53116b9842607e76cf28916489a845cc8d50aebf3da85e556657fdc6fea3690/callie.jpg" /> Holy Roller Executive Chef and owner Callie Speer (Photo by Shelley Hiam)Rebooting Kitchen Culture With a Novel Concept: Sober LivingFood industry support groups encourage healthier lifestyles for restaurant workers &nbsp; &nbsp; If the story of Anthony Bourdain's life – as told within Kitchen Confidential, his rollicking exposé of the restaurant industry's seedy underbelly – exposed the addiction issues found in many kitchens, his death revealed even more complex and pervasive challenges. The conversation around mental health has cracked open considerably since Bourdain's memoir in 2000, but one last stronghold of the "bootstraps" mentality remains in the food service industry. &nbsp; &nbsp; In response, prominent Austin chefs are beginning to echo Bourdain's transparency. Having also struggled with these issues, they are now sober and fighting to change the culture within their own kitchens and with the help of new industry-specific support groups. &nbsp; &nbsp; "Restaurants are like pirate ships. You have to abide by certain parameters to not be ousted off the ship," explains Callie Speer, executive chef/owner of Holy Roller. She's been in the industry since age 16, and sober for three years. As a restaurant veteran, she's all too familiar with the macho culture. "You have line cooks that are like, 'Oh, holy shit – look how long I can hold this sizzling hot frying pan,' and you're like, 'There's nobody else in the world that thinks that's cool.' For whatever reason it's become ingrained in restaurants to get the shit beat out of you at work and be fine with that, because the harder it is on you the more awesome you did." &nbsp; &nbsp; James Robert, executive chef at Fixe and sober since age 24, has always observed the competition as endemic to not only his work, but the social life around it. "We want to be the best at everything we do, so after the long shifts, we're at the bar, we still have that competitive edge. 'Whatever you're doing, I can do more of.'" Page Pressley, owner of the newly opened Swedish Hill and sober for 12 years, describes it as an "all-encompassing" career, something that draws obsessive personalities. "It's not the hardest thing in the world, but it is something that requires a lot of failure to then see success. The types of personalities that are able to make it through tend to be a little bit more masochistic, and therefore probably a little bit more prone to addiction." &nbsp; &nbsp; Longstanding social traditions reinforce the lifestyle, and the ubiquitous "shift drink" is perhaps the most entrenched of all. Speer says, "Basically every restaurant in the world, you get off work, someone hands you a beer." After that, the bar next door gives you the first round free, and the cycle continues. So how do you change the culture? Start with your own community. &nbsp; &nbsp; Philip and Callie Speer, though separated, still collaborate on these issues and practice similar approaches to shaping their respective restaurants' cultures. Philip has a policy at Comedor where staff must leave for two hours before coming back as a paying customer. "That way you can't get off work and be like, yeah, I'll have a beer. So people go home." At Holy Roller, Callie provides drink tickets for her staff to visit nearby West Sixth bars, but her restaurant remains a clean space for employees, many of whom are in recovery. &nbsp; &nbsp; The goal is not to erase the opportunity for staff to bond; rather, as Philip Speer says, to change it from post-shift debauchery to pre-shift camaraderie. Earlier this year, he started Comedor Run Club, a weekly running group steadily drawing more industry participants. Resources normally spent on shift drinks go toward healthier endeavors, like the run club, yoga classes, or continuing education for his servers. "It doesn't have to be at 1am. Go for a run, have some coffee afterward, a smoothie, a taco, then go to work and feel better. You get to share those stories and those laughs and that camaraderie still." &nbsp; &nbsp; Joel Rivas started washing dishes at 16 in San Antonio, where he witnessed his co-workers' tendency toward burnout and a slew of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Rivas, 24 years clean in October, eventually found himself in health-care, but the restaurant industry never left his mind. In 2017, he left a soul-sucking job to found the Saint City Culinary Foundation, a monthly supper club whose proceeds went to those recovering from substance abuse in the restaurant industry. In 2018 it grew into Heard, a weekly support group. "It's heart-wrenching to see people that are such givers not have a resource. So I saw a need and just sunk my life savings and 401(k) and decided I'm gonna do this for a living." &nbsp; &nbsp; As the group grew, people from other cities reached out. Callie offered Holy Roller as a meeting ground when the group expanded to Austin in May, and eventually joined the board as Heard's culinary director. She and Rivas are expansion-focused: A women's culinary scholarship program is set to launch sometime next year in Austin; the Houston chapter launched in early August; and Dallas, New Orleans, and Brooklyn are next on the agenda. &nbsp; &nbsp; Heard's counterpart, Ben's Friends, is another nationwide industry-specific support group, founded in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2016 and since expanded to other cities, including Austin this year. While Heard includes conversations around general mental health problems as well as substance abuse, Ben's Friends focuses on addiction recovery modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. Philip holds Ben's Friends meetings in Comedor every Monday at 11am, a time and Downtown location that work better with staff's schedules than most AA meetings. &nbsp; &nbsp; Many of these chefs credit AA with their recoveries, but Heard and Ben's Friends provide spaces specifically for the food and beverage industry, which can offer a more intimate experience than AA could. Philip explains, "These people understand that I have to try to not drink with a bar behind me. I have to try to not drink when I'm pouring sherry into the pan to make the glaze, I have to try to not drink when I have people around me getting drunk, I have to try to not drink when I'm a bartender, when I'm a server, when I'm a sommelier. It's safe. You feel less judged." &nbsp; &nbsp; As Pressley says, when it comes to recovery, one thing cannot be anyone's everything. To Rivas, the goal of Heard is to be a safe hub from which industry folks can take the next step toward recovery. Heard connects participants to therapists with sliding scale rates, and is working on a discounted rate for a residential rehab program in Austin. The ultimate goal is to provide a health insurance program for the restaurant industry, similar to HAAM, that will be piloted in Austin. At the minimum, he wants industry workers to have access to "a telemedicine option, where they can call a doctor if they have a UTI or respiratory infection and get a prescription called in that won't land them in the ER for something really minor, or force them to go to an urgent care center that costs $110 and takes them out of a day of work." He says county resources are daunting and people need an easy option that's tailored for them. &nbsp; &nbsp; Rivas has encountered skepticism from funders who think donating is futile because of the high likelihood of relapse. "Recovery is not this linear plane. There's gonna be ebb and flow. I know it's so cliche, but if we keep somebody from hurting themselves, it's worth it. Earlier this year, we had a guy that would go to Heard meetings in San Antonio, and he called me at like 9 o'clock at night. I was in bed and he was out in the country; he had fallen off the wagon and started drinking again. He had a gun and I was the last person on his list. So I got up, drove an hour and a half out to the country, picked him up. He's been sober since May, and he's doing fantastic. If the program hadn't existed, if we hadn't have been there, who knows what would've happened. And I'm really tired of hearing about people in the industry killing themselves. There needs to be something there for them." &nbsp; &nbsp; Whether it's in individual kitchens with chefs that lead by example, through support groups like Ben's Friends and Heard, or staff-specific activities like Comedor Run Club, the message is getting louder: It's no longer okay to ignore your health, mental or physical, and there are concrete actions available to help. &nbsp; &nbsp; "But that's the whole point as to why we're even having this thing," Callie Speer says. "To make it so you don't feel you have to whisper about it. It's not that fucking weird. I don't even know what the statistics are now of how many people in this country have addiction issues, but it's a whole, whole lot. The more people and the more organizations that we have out in this world that make people have to pay attention to that and make it more normalized, the better." https://11nafisher.com/Taco Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:38:01 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Taco <img width="1250" height="781" width_o="1250" height_o="781" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0dbfd612496a6bd3b6748388bf1ccac2a62e669820a1e331c9f29e8e8d5f47a3/jose-ralat-taco-editor_CreditRobertStrickland.jpg" data-mid="68459345" border="0" alt="Jos&eacute; R. Ralat, Taco Editor of Texas Monthly (Photo by Robert Strickland)" data-caption="José R. Ralat, Taco Editor of Texas Monthly (Photo by Robert Strickland)" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0dbfd612496a6bd3b6748388bf1ccac2a62e669820a1e331c9f29e8e8d5f47a3/jose-ralat-taco-editor_CreditRobertStrickland.jpg" />José R. Ralat, Taco Editor of Texas Monthly (Photo by Robert Strickland) Texas Monthly's Taco Editor on the Past, Present, &amp; Future of the American Taco Q&amp;A with José R. Ralat, the man with one of the most envied titles in town Austin Chronicle: Right now a book launch is kind of weird; usually you'd go on a tour. How is it different and how have you been coping with that change? José R. Ralat: So at first I was angry. Putting together a book tour is hard work, and I thought I had all my ducks in a row; then this came. After I got over feeling bad for myself, I looked at the situation and said, well I'll just video the damn thing. I've done it twice … it's been fun. It's definitely been educational. But it actually opens up a lot more opportunities, because I can talk to people in Detroit face to face when I wasn't planning on going to Detroit. AC: It sort of adds more stops. JR: … without leaving my office. It's not ideal, but I can definitely work with it, and I have been working with it and I've been learning. Luckily I have the resources of Texas Monthly that can help me out, and with the virtual book touring, I can connect my professional and personal networks in ways that I wouldn't have otherwise. So, it's fascinating that way, and it's forced me to look at this differently, which is part of what the book's supposed to do. It's supposed to make you look at this one subject, that for example Texans take for granted as part of our DNA, and look at it in new ways and look at it in nonjudgmental ways, and by that I mean ultimately don't let your preconceptions prevent you from trying something. Because the whole point is, if it's delicious, fuckin' eat it! AC: You often defend things as tacos that you wouldn't normally think of as tacos, like flautas, burritos, etc. Can you talk a little bit about the definition of a taco and why you think it should be broader than it’s usually thought of? JR: There are two definitions of a taco; one is physical, one is not. The physical is a tortilla, filling, and a salsa. The tortilla can be corn or flour. The other definition is a reflection and representation of its time and place. Tacos are regional. We know that as Texans. It seems that a lot of people inherently know that, but they regard it as stopping at the river. But tacos are different all over Mexico. Wherever there are tacos, there are going to be differences; we just need to be reminded of that. So the size of the tortilla doesn't matter, neither does the preparation of that tortilla. The earliest published recipes we have of the taco call for frying, and you could roll it or you could fold it. “The taco isn’t as new as we think it is. While Mexicans have folded things into tortillas for millennia, the name taco is a relatively new term that, according to some theories, goes back as far as the 18th century. Other theories … there’s no way for us to know because we can’t time travel.” AC: When was the first recipe you're talking about? JR: Turn of the 19th century into the 20th. The taco isn't as new as we think it is. While Mexicans have folded things into tortillas for millennia, the name taco is a relatively new term that, according to some theories, goes back as far as the 18th century. Other theories … there's no way for us to know because we can't time travel. Which is part of the exciting thing, we can look at it from these different angles and we can all be right, we can all debate and hopefully we debate professionally enough and we don't take things personally. Texans have a hard time not taking things personally when it comes to the taco. AC: You were saying people were putting things in tortillas for millennia, so what's the difference between that and a taco, is it just a naming thing, or is anything in a tortilla a taco? JR: At this point almost anything in a tortilla is a taco. Where that line is, I don't know. It's a matter of discretion. I had one friend that was telling me it's like the differences between sandwiches. But a taco is not a sandwich [laughs]. At one point the name stuck, and that's how we've, pardon the expression, rolled with it, from that point forward. A lot of people understand that regionality is a critical part of the food, so they have integrated elements to create these new categories and these developing styles. In the chapters I have sidebars for these subcategories because there isn't a lot on them now that I could dig up. Maybe someone else can, and maybe a couple years down the road there will be a chapter's worth of information on it. That would be really exciting. AC: Subcategories – are you at liberty to say what they are? JR: Like Indo-Mex, which is subcontinental Indian integrated with Mexican, there's quite a bit of that in Austin. More of it in Houston. There's a Cajun taco, which also comes out of Houston, and Louisiana of course. That is largely African American. Those are the two big ones that I would single out. Those are for me very exciting because there's a lot of room for development. They both currently fall under the intersection of Southern and Mexican cuisine because they just happen to be geographically in the American South. AC: Right. Are there any Northern American and Mexican fusion tacos? Like is there a lobster roll taco in Maine or something? JR: In New York you'll get smoked pastrami tacos. Delicious. I haven't found one yet on a rye tortilla which I've nagged people about. I'm like, why are you serving this to me on a corn tortilla? I want a rye tortilla [laughs]. It's like they're only doing half the job! But the Midwestern crunchy taco is a lot different than the ones we have down here. AC: Is it like a puffy taco? JR: No, it's a cooked corn tortilla that's fried, almost like the kind you would get at a fast food place, but more along the lines of Jack in the Box. So what usually happens is they'll fill the corn tortilla, fold it and fry it. I've had some where they'll put in a slice of Kraft American singles. And I've had some where they put down lettuce and grated Parmesan cheese. That comes out of Kansas City, and that developed out of the proximity of Mexican and Italian laborers exchanging ingredients and using what they had. And it is amazing. Not only does it taste good, but intellectually it is so fascinating! Because it is exactly what a taco should be – a representation of its time and place. So I love it. AC: Did you go to all 50 states, and were there any that were surprising to you in their version of the taco? JR: I did not go to all 50 states – I want to. But for example it's really expensive to fly to Charleston. And I was only gonna be there for 24 hours so the cost/benefit wasn't gonna work out for me. I knew Chicago was always gonna be a great experience, because it is one of the country's taco capitals, I just hadn't been there yet, and I was blown away by it. Memphis is amazing. Thank goodness Memphis is really close to Dallas, where I live. It's only an eight-hour drive. AC: What's their version like? JR: So Memphis lost almost 90% of its Anglo population and a lot of that was replaced by Latin American immigrants and laborers, and now what we have coming out of Memphis is what we see coming out of Atlanta; that is, the integration of Southern American and Mexican ingredients. We're talking about the two greatest corn cultures finally coming together – it took long enough, right? In Memphis, my favorite example is El Mero Taco which started as a truck but is now a shuttered restaurant, like everything else. El Mero, it translates to "the best." And it's really great! The couple who own it, he is from Memphis but she is from Oaxaca. They met in Austin and moved to Memphis once the city began to permit food trucks. They wanted to open up their own food truck that offered their take on Mexican and Southern foods. So they have a really great fried chicken taco with buttermilk salsa, and they have collard greens with albóndigas, meatballs in a chipotle salsa, using tortillas that are sourced locally – and that is the physical manifestation of everything the book is about. It's delicious too. It doesn't always have to be! This isn't just a "best of" that I wrote, it's a history. “I think that the taqueria and the Mexican restaurant are beautifully situated to ride this out. Because they are predominantly small, family-owned businesses that can adapt quickly, and adaptation is key. Adaptation is why the taco continues to become more popular … So taquerias will survive and they will thrive. Tacos are doing great.” AC: So it's called a history and guide; the guide is sort of self-explanatory. But the history … how did you decide where to go, and then did you chart the history from your favorite places? I'm curious about your methodology. JR: There were some that were obvious places I wanted to visit; I wanted to go to Chicago, I wanted to go to Los Angeles. I wanted to hit every corner of Texas where I live, because for example, tacos in Brownsville are completely different from tacos in McAllen and they're 40 minutes apart. But my methodology was about three weeks' worth of research ahead of a trip, from which I created a spreadsheet of places that I was gonna visit, all of their details, what I was gonna eat there and whatever notes I had, and a lot of newspaper clippings. Luckily there are an incredible amount of newspaper issues available digitally. I also had access to university databases, which are hard to get. And that allowed me to dig deeper, because I had access to more knowledge. I would fall down these rabbit holes – I love researching – I spent eight hours going through the patent office's online database. It was a wonderful day. It was just lovely. AC: Speaking of research – your trajectory from the blog, The Taco Trail, to becoming the taco editor at Texas Monthly, to this book – what sparked your curiosity about the taco and when did you start the blog, and is there research in the book that came out of the blog? JR: So there is research that came out of the blog. I've always kept a running list of places that I wanted to visit in relation to the blog. I came to tacos through my wife, who's a native Tejana. She introduced me to the breakfast taco, and it blew my mind that such a thing existed. Then she made me eat lengua and I was further blown away. And I developed a taste for it, but then when we moved to Dallas, the editor of the Dallas Observer called me up one day and asked if I liked tacos, and I said, "Who doesn't like tacos?" And he replied, "Great, pitch me something on Monday." I pitched this online weekly series that became The Taco Trail, and I was only there for a year or so. When I left I took the name with me and continued the research independently through freelance work, and I did a lot of freelance work. Eventually I got a full-time gig as the food editor at Cowboys &amp; Indians magazine. That allowed me a lot of resources that I didn't have previously, so I could convince them that they should send me to Brownsville [laughs] so that I could eat 99 barbacoa tacos. AC: You must have an iron stomach. JR: You know, the only time I've gotten sick was in Canada. In Vancouver. Maybe it's because of the pure water, I don't know [laughs]. I do know that Mexican kitchens are the cleanest kitchens. A lot of that has to do with prejudice and stereotypes that they're fighting. But while I was at C&amp;I, I co-edited Texas Monthly's 2015 Taco Issue, and at that point I pitched this job. Because they already had Daniel [Vaughn] as the barbecue editor, and what I told the editor-in-chief at the time was, more people eat Mexican food more of the time than they do barbecue, we both know this, why don't you just hire me? [laughs] So we started to talk about it, and there were several turnovers of leadership and ownership, and with this last one it just worked. I was unrelenting. And eventually they said yes. It's been a lot of hard work, it's been exciting and nerve-racking, because nothing like this has ever really been done before on this scale. I feel like I have a lot to prove and a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time. AC: Yeah, and how has that changed now that you're kind of on lockdown? Not only with the book but with your whole job. How is it different? JR: Well, I can go a little ways. I don't drive because I have epilepsy, which makes my job even more incredible, the fact that I can do it. But there are ways. I don't like the word no, I will find a way. My wife drives, so if we need to go to, for example, get alcohol for the weekend, I'll say hey, why don't we drive like five extra miles and we can leave Dallas city limits and try these tacos? We can eat them in the car. And that helps. But I also spend a lot of time eating at places that remain open via curbside pickup and delivery, selling the same foods that I've eaten, so I can continue to cover those restaurants for the Taco of the Week series. But I've started to work on stories about how these restaurants are dealing with the pandemic, and I think that's important right now. AC: The goal of the job has sort of changed for the moment. JR: I've had to pivot just as restaurants have. And that's a good opportunity to stretch muscles I haven't stretched in a long time, you know, news reporting is something that I don't usually get to do because I'm writing profiles or featured reviews, or trend pieces. Now I have to talk about, well, you can't sit people down, how do you make money? Well, you close. And I think that the taqueria and the Mexican restaurant are beautifully situated to ride this out. Because they are predominantly small, family-owned businesses that can adapt quickly, and adaptation is key. Adaptation is why the taco continues to become more popular. And it will be more popular once we get through this current lockdown. And once we get through following lockdowns. Because there will be more lockdowns until there's a vaccine, or until there's some sort of herd immunity. There's so much we don't know about COVID-19 and how it presents itself in so many different ways. There are three major symptoms but I know of people who have presented with different symptoms who both tested positive for the virus. I’ve been reading a lot about this because it affects my job. So taquerias will survive and they will thrive. Tacos are doing great. AC: Looking beyond COVID-19, what is the future of the American taco? Like I'm thinking about nixtamalization, you're really passionate about tortillas, and I'm curious if you think that's going to catch on. Also I've been hearing people have been making their own homemade tortillas because of all the extra time; do you think there's gonna be a wave of attention paid to the tortilla after this? JR: So it's really interesting that this pandemic came at a time where we were finally – and by we I mean the small group of journalists who cover Mexican food in the U.S. – were finally convincing the dining public that it was okay to pay five or $12 for a taco, because the ingredients used require it, and the labor requires it. So it's just as legitimate a cuisine as French food. There are a lot of great nixtamalized corn tortillas, but they are extremely expensive and they are laborious. They’re difficult to make well. You can kinda do it at home, but it's even less easy at home than it is at a restaurant or at a tortilleria because they have the infrastructure, they have the space. I think the tortillas we see being made at home are being made from dehydrated corn flour, which is fine if that's what people want, they should have it. That being said, there's nothing like a freshly made nixtamalized corn tortilla. You're getting a piece of the Earth, you're getting a piece of a culture, it's something sacred. I don't want people to begrudge or look down upon any taqueria that doesn't nixtamalize their own corn, because maybe they can't afford it. If you want your $2 taco, do not expect freshly handmade tortillas. And there's nothing wrong with it! Because people have expectations and they only have a certain amount of money, and not everyone has the time to pat out a corn tortilla. It's OK! [laughs] But I think the more people make tortillas at home the more appreciation there will be for the hard work that tortilleras do and that other cooks do, and that only helps the taco. The taco will continue to change as we change, as populations shift, as markets open. Now you can get almost anything you want from anywhere in the world overnight, but the key word is almost. The markets will continue to open and people will want access to ingredients that they didn’t previously have access to. I think people might have a hard time paying for more expensive tacos, but that's where capitalism comes in. You know, I'm not a big fan, as the book probably lays out [laughs]. But the more purveyors of corn that work directly with small family farms in Mexico, the better. Because that lowers the prices of these nixtamalized corn tortillas. There's more availability, therefore more competition, and the price is lowered. And that benefits the consumer. It might not benefit the farmer. But hopefully yes. So we're gonna need more purveyors than the three or four that there are now. It's fascinating to me that most of the corn Mexicans eat comes from the U.S., but Americans are obsessed with artisanal Mexican corn [laughs]. AC: So I'm obligated to ask: You've said that Austin tacos are overrated, but is there a particular one that fits the bill for you? JR: I absolutely love Vaquero Taquero, Valentina's, Comedor. I also love Trill Taqueria – unfortunately it's closed right now. But that guy, Nick Belloni, was making the quintessential Austin taco. He was sourcing everything from nearby. And he had rigged up his own corn mill, so that he could grind corn that he had nixtamalized. Locally sourced corn. Everything was local and well done. Delicious, wonderful, creative, the epitome of what the Austin taco should be. Unfortunately it's closed right now. The guy’s a family man, he has kids, and he decided that this was a good opportunity to spend more time with his family and I can't begrudge him that. I just hope he opens back up because Texas and Austin will be lacking something great. And it's worth the price point. I spent a lot of money there. Especially the first time when I said I'll have one of everything please. I paid for that with my own money. That was pre-Texas Monthly, that was just me going oh, yep, one of all of them. I say that quite a bit, not as much as I used to but it surprises a lot of people. They're like really? You want one [each] of 12 tacos we have on the menu? I say, yes please. Are you sure? Yep. AC: That's why they call you the expert. Somebody's gotta do it. Anything else you’d want our readers to know? JR: I really hope people walk away from this book with an open mind, or with a mind that is more open to the possibilities and less judgment. I want people to, in concert with this pandemic, to hopefully value the people behind it all. Just because they're people. I think that none of this matters if we don't consider the people, and they're just as important if not more important. So, an open mind is what people should take from the book. AC: Thank you so much, and have a good rest of your quarantine. You've definitely opened my mind, I've never thought about a taco this much. JR: You too! [laughs] It's all I think about. https://11nafisher.com/Banana-Peel Fri, 24 Apr 2020 23:37:47 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Banana-Peel <img width="800" height="521" width_o="800" height_o="521" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ffebaaf7fc0b79ce3afe2d2559359b1aad39b0d94658b979a34116ed35c7260f/compost-image.jpg" data-mid="68464561" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/ffebaaf7fc0b79ce3afe2d2559359b1aad39b0d94658b979a34116ed35c7260f/compost-image.jpg" />Illustration by Jason Stout / Getty Images A Banana Peel, a Diaper, and a Plastic Bag Walk Into Austin's Composting ProgramHow can a whole city compost, is it working, and can we reach zero waste by 2040?&nbsp; &nbsp; It’s 9am on a chilly morning in Austin, and a big green truck is at the intersection of 38th and Jefferson, heading into the Bryker Woods neighborhood. Every 10 feet or so, it stops and two men in safety-green jackets hop out, manually tipping residents’ green bins into the truck. It’s a painstakingly slow process, each block taking about five minutes. They’ve been at it since 6am and won’t stop until around 3:30pm. This year, curbside collection of organic waste for composting expands to the entire city of Austin, serving 200,000 homes each week and traveling a different route each day. Between compost, trash, and recycling, Austin Resource Recovery (ARR) is the only city department that visits every Austin neighborhood this often. &nbsp; &nbsp; It's a gargantuan effort to deal with something that most people never give a second thought. But, just for a moment, consider the banana peel. When you toss one into the garbage, it most likely lands in a bag made of polyethylene plastic, which can take thousands of years to degrade in a landfill. Even still, that banana is perfect fertilizer, right? Wrong: Because of the lack of oxygen, a banana peel trapped inside a bag cannot break down properly. When rain mixes with waste in a landfill (like banana juice and plastic bag chemicals), a liquid called leachate is produced, which pollutes soil and waterways. Not only do landfills give off methane gas – one of the worst contributors to global warming – they also present a maintenance problem for cities: Once a site is closed, it has to be managed indefinitely to keep it contained. &nbsp; &nbsp; "In a landfill it takes hundreds, thousands of years for things to break down, so we don't have any timeline for when that responsibility will end," explains Ashley Pace, public information specialist for ARR. Composting and recycling reduce the need for landfills, which in turn saves our money and our resources. Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, how we deal with our waste is inextricably tied to the future of how we consume. From Trash To Compost &nbsp; &nbsp; If not in a landfill, where should our banana peel end up? You may have noticed green bins, just like the blue recycling bins except for color, popping up in your neighborhoods since last September (or well before that if ARR piloted the program in your area; see "A Decade of Action Toward a Zero-Waste City"). If you toss your banana peel in that bin, Austin Resource Recovery picks it up and brings it to Organics "By Gosh", a privately owned facility in Hornsby Bend, east of Austin, that repurposes the scraps into compost, soil, and mulch to be resold. ARR does the same for every house in Austin (but not every apartment; only fourplexes and smaller) as it's expanded curbside collection to the whole city this year. But surprisingly, the contents of those bins only amount to 15% of the entire city's organic waste. So what happens to the other 85% generated by restaurants, retailers, large apartment complexes, and other commercial users? &nbsp; &nbsp; The city's Universal Recycling Ordinance (URO) governs the nonresidential aspect of Austin's composting world. Basically it requires Austin businesses to divert at least 50% of their waste from the landfill through composting or other means. If they want to pay someone to haul their food waste off to Organics "By Gosh", there are many private haulers to choose from. Among the most venerated – established long before the URO's food-waste provisions took effect in 2018 – are Break It Down and Joe's Organics. Break It Down services such beloved local food-and-beverage businesses as Kerbey Lane Cafe, Home Slice Pizza, JuiceLand, and Wheatsville Co-op. Joe Diffie of Joe's Organics (whose clients include Short Stop and Bento Picnic) was involved at the inception of the ARR pilot program in 2012 as a data collector and administrator. He says the main issues compost haulers faced back then still remain: the cost of hauling and processing organics on such a large scale, contamination, and the low resale value of compost. Getting to Scale&nbsp; &nbsp; Both Joe's Organics and Break It Down have been around for a while, since 2012 and 2009 respectively. In 2018, however, the scale of the organic waste supply increased exponentially due to the URO, making it hard for commercial haulers to continue processing the waste themselves. (If one measly banana peel can do damage, imagine JuiceLand's output.) "It's in the process of rotting, so it has to be dealt with regularly. You have to have a lot of expensive equipment to process it efficiently," says Diffie. When the ordinance passed, Joe's Organics shut down its own composting operation: "It was getting to be too much to manage. I would've had to upgrade equipment. It really took off right after the ordinance was enacted; all of a sudden I had three times as much volume as I was used to. I said, 'I think it's time to let the pros handle the compost.'" &nbsp; &nbsp; The pros are at Organics "By Gosh", which processes both residential and commercial food waste. OBG has been around since 1989 and was recently acquired by a private equity firm called Q2Earth. They have scaled up their operations considerably since the 2018 URO, both processing the city's increased curbside collections and taking more waste from the private haulers serving commercial users.Contamination&nbsp; &nbsp; One of the biggest issues with composting on such a large scale, for both ARR and commercial haulers alike, is something relatively out of their control: contamination. Ray Armstrong, a supervisor at ARR, has one word when it comes to this: "Pampers." Due to greenwashing (advertising that makes a product seem more environmentally friendly than it is), many people think that certain types of diapers are compostable, but "biodegradable" and "compostable" mean different things. In order to control contamination, Armstrong's team conducts frequent audits. &nbsp; &nbsp; As part of one such audit this morning in Bryker Woods, those workers in safety vests will collect organic waste from 60 households, bring the contents back to ARR's own facility, spread out the waste, and inspect. If ARR collectors note contamination or improper sorting, they will place a tag on the door of that resident. Even if it means picking through dirty diapers, "not picking it up is not an option," says Arm­strong. "Customer service is more important. We'll pick it up even if it's wrong, but we'll leave literature to try to educate that customer." On the commercial side, in busy restaurants it's easy for a stray plastic wrapper to end up in the compost bin, so most private haulers also provide education for businesses on how to separate different kinds of waste and avoid contamination. This year's city budget funds two new enforcement positions for the URO. &nbsp;&nbsp; Though enforcement may help, education is paramount in preventing contamination. ARR holds information sessions in neighborhoods before each rollout of the composting program and follow-up Q&amp;A sessions after, but not everyone attends. Part of Pace's role is to field questions from the public in these sessions. "It can get very confusing. There are a lot of rules," she says. The most important thing to remember is, "If you aren't sure, just keep it out." In an effort to address the confusion, the city has a search tool on the ARR website (app version forthcoming) called "What Do I Do With ...?" where residents can type in any item and be told how to dispose of it. See www.austintexas.gov/what-do-i-do. &nbsp; &nbsp; Pace says another common theme of her Q&amp;As is the smell created by compostables and the ways to mitigate odors: by using a *BPI-certified bag in the small, green, in-home bin provided by ARR (or wherever you collect scraps) on your kitchen counter; or by putting those scraps in the freezer until the day of collection. But there's only so much lipstick you can put on the pig. "The bigger picture is that composting is not as easy as throwing everything in the trash," she explains. "I think that's one of the hardest cultural barriers for people to get over. You're being asked to separate things, put them in specific bags, and we understand that's not the easy way, but it's the way that's going to help us reach our zero-waste goal and extend the life of our landfills." A Valuable Resource?&nbsp; &nbsp; The city is not alone in thinking about the bigger picture. Those on the other end of the chain – compost processors – have innovative ideas of their own about the possibilities of compost as a resource. Joe Diffie says the future of food waste management is a kind of closed loop, where the food we eat is grown using the city's repurposed waste. &nbsp; &nbsp; "We spend all this money either burying or composting our food waste, and then we spend all this other money importing our food from other places," says Diffie. "I could really see using a city's food waste stream to raise food in the immediate surrounding counties, kind of bridging the gap between city and country. The city could benefit the country with some feed stock for building up local agriculture. Local agriculture could in turn lower its prices a little bit and help the city afford healthier food." &nbsp; &nbsp; Some haulers and processors already practice small versions of this model. Break It Down partners with a local pig farm where animals consume all of its food waste except putrescibles (i.e., animal products) which they drop off at OBG. Joe's Organics (Diffie's biz) now drops off waste at OBG, buys the soil products OBG produces, and uses them to grow microgreens, edible flowers, and other specialty produce to be sold at farmers' markets in Austin. &nbsp; &nbsp; Raising farm animals, nature's built-in composters, is an especially lucrative option. "Pigs love this stuff," says Diffie. They quickly eat up all the food waste and subsequently turn a profit for the farmers in the form of bacon. This model also solves an existential problem for haulers and processors: the low resale value of compost. As Diffie points out, "Chicken poop is worth more than food waste. Basically they created this commodity that somebody has to process, but there's no end market for it. Compost is the most expensive waste stream to recycle because it has such a low value. Anybody that can find a way to increase the value that you can generate off the back end of a compost-hauling operation is going to be able to beat the competition on the hauling rates." And nothing increases value like bacon. But About That Smell ...&nbsp; &nbsp; GrubTubs, a local startup with a lot of recent media attention and WeWork funding, provides perhaps the most succinct example of this closed-food-loop ideal: Its model uses black soldier fly larvae, a protein-­rich grub, to break down food waste (including putrescibles), and then feeds the grubs to pigs and chickens that, in theory, end up on the menus of the restaurants whose food waste raised their feed. &nbsp; &nbsp; Unfortunately, businesses can run into trouble processing without special equipment like that of OBG. Compost can generate a rank smell, especially when improperly processed, and if the facility lies too close to a residential neighborhood, it could create an environmental justice issue. Austin saw that issue arise in 2013, when HausBar Farms' insect-assisted compost pile started to generate noxious odors that wafted into the surrounding Govalle neighborhood. In 2019, urban farm history repeated itself as the Buda neighborhood of Whispering Hollow, along with the city of Buda itself, brought a lawsuit against GrubTubs for an offensive odor that was allegedly lowering residents' quality of life and making a mockery of the city slogan ("Breathe easy here"). GrubTubs, whose facility lies just outside the Buda city limits, prevailed in that legal action, although the city has enacted an ordinance that it hopes will prevent such issues from reoccurring with other urban-ag operations. &nbsp; &nbsp; In these cases, the problem was the inclusion of animal products in the compost pile, as well as the use of (different) animals to break down the waste into compost. The residents of Whispering Hollow reported unfamiliar fly infestations allegedly related to the grubs on GrubTubs' nearby farm. Chicken carcasses smell worse than veggies and take longer to decompose. Another concern is feeding animals their own end products (i.e., pigs eating bacon); not only does that sound disgusting to many, it also enables disease transmission – most notoriously, mad cow disease. Animals that eat humans' food scraps likewise run a risk of contracting human-borne illnesses like tuberculosis; for this reason, the European Union does not approve of the use of black soldier fly larvae for animal feed. Compost­ing animal products remains one of the most mysterious and confounding issues of this business – though ARR now collects them as part of the city compost program. When OBG was asked about their putrescible processing specifically, they declined to comment – secrets of the trade, apparently.Other Cities, Other Models&nbsp; &nbsp; Because Austin's citywide composting program is new, it's a challenge to define and track metrics that will help us know for certain if the plan is working or if it will work going forward. But ours is not the first city to attempt citywide composting. San Francisco was the first U.S. city to commit to a zero-waste goal, back in 2003, and by 2012 it was able to divert 80% of its waste from landfills. San Francisco's composting and recycling programs are similar to ours, but with one key difference: mandatory participation. Despite that, it did not reach its zero-waste goal by 2020; the new goal is to divert 97% of waste from the landfill by 2030. (That's even more ambitious than it sounds because San Francisco defines "zero waste" literally – no landfill trash at all.) &nbsp; &nbsp; Copenhagen uses data to motivate its citizens to sort properly. "Feedback about ... sorting shows that what you do has effect and importance," says a report from C40, an international network of 96 cities (including Austin) committed to climate leadership and sustainability, including zero waste. "For example, a feedback could be: 'You have sorted xx kg of plastic and thereby saved xx kg of CO2.'" Sweden is famous for powering its cities by burning trash in low-carbon incinerators and turning food waste into biogas (methane gas that isn't emitted but instead captured for use as a fuel interchangeable with natural gas). &nbsp; &nbsp; New York City is aiming for a 90% diversion rate by 2030 but has hit roadblocks in its composting program. According to a 2018 New York Times article, "Residents put only about 10 percent of their food scraps in the brown bins, throwing the rest in the garbage." They think the issue stems from "a lack of advertising and education, and the fact that the program is voluntary." In Texas, San Antonio and Austin remain the only cities with a composting program as part of their residential waste management. Fort Worth is currently piloting one, where bins are provided for a fee of $20 and residents must drop off at a processing site themselves. &nbsp; &nbsp; In all of these cities, changing people's behavior is one of the most difficult challenges. Even with a mandatory system, San Francisco, the poster city for environmental achievement, is having trouble reaching its zero-waste goals. Increasing education and advertising is the most common response to this challenge, but considerable change in the products we buy (and their packaging) will have to come into play as well, with an end goal of a circular economy where products are designed to be reused. There's only so much that can be recycled or composted; many products are still just trash. &nbsp; &nbsp; To address the multitude of apartment dwellers in a city where more than half of residents are renters, Austin is set to begin another six-month pilot program, with 10 to 20 participating multifamily properties, that operates like the residential curbside pickup program. Currently apartment complexes are considered commercial users, creating their own waste-diversion plans with private haulers. Scaling up a collection plan for multifamily residents could prove difficult if current conditions persist – the lack of incentive for private haulers and the low value of compost. More innovative ways of reusing waste may change that, but those must be carefully managed so as not to create uncomfortable living situations for those nearby. No one likes living next to a landfill, but no one likes living next to a compost pile either. &nbsp; &nbsp; Austin Resource Recovery will conduct a "waste characterization study" this year to determine how much waste we are currently diverting from the landfill, whether we have reached the 75% diversion goal for 2020, and how much still needs to be done to reach the 2040 zero-waste goal. That's not as far off as we might think. &nbsp; &nbsp; In 2018, the UN Intergovern­mental Panel on Climate Change reported and predicted much more rapid warming of the planet than previously thought (see www.ipcc.ch/sr15). The Earth is now projected to warm 2.7 degrees by 2040, making our zero-waste goal all the more relevant. After 20 more SXSWs, Austin's population may have tripled. The composting program is as much a call to action as it is a service. If individual residents don't participate, if we don't make a habit of keeping diapers out of our green bins, or if we don't start making products that are compostable, this thing won't work. We, as a city, approved the zero-waste plan way back in 2005. Now it's up to us to see it through. https://11nafisher.com/Valentine Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:20:35 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Valentine <img width="2048" height="1055" width_o="2048" height_o="1055" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11f1181c90d8e0cf9ae3507170b446325803327f834536337a63f20967e3393e/swings.jpg" data-mid="68476455" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/11f1181c90d8e0cf9ae3507170b446325803327f834536337a63f20967e3393e/swings.jpg" /> <img width="2048" height="1365" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/977d9a8856ce88cf32bc0da9125ea2177b6b0c22a1c7884429660d87d7c9ec17/valentine-pirates.jpg" data-mid="68458105" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/977d9a8856ce88cf32bc0da9125ea2177b6b0c22a1c7884429660d87d7c9ec17/valentine-pirates.jpg" /> https://11nafisher.com/Boyd Sat, 02 May 2020 17:22:26 +0000 Lina Fisher https://11nafisher.com/Boyd <img width="2048" height="1702" width_o="2048" height_o="1702" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c4c2e99d98a436e182a64a2cb329b106c852b65e565936bebb26c7a82679192/cherry-coke.jpg" data-mid="69391109" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7c4c2e99d98a436e182a64a2cb329b106c852b65e565936bebb26c7a82679192/cherry-coke.jpg" /> <img width="2264" height="1272" width_o="2264" height_o="1272" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cfda0448d5a4b19ce07bf2f6c9a7cd35b202de8980130794f613cfee60b18cad/BOYD-1.png" data-mid="69391131" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cfda0448d5a4b19ce07bf2f6c9a7cd35b202de8980130794f613cfee60b18cad/BOYD-1.png" />