Did you ever wonder how the Buffalo Zoo may get rid of, well, what the animals get rid of? A Buffalo-based company specializing in the creation of sustainable environments is using animal waste from the Zoo in its composts, which in turn are being used for numerous projects in the Buffalo area.WBFO's Michael Mroziak reports.
Rather than deliver their dung to a landfill miles away, the zoo has instead been supplying animal feces from several of its exhibits to Sustainable Resources Group of Buffalo, which puts the waste materials to use enriching composts.
Dave Majewski of SRG and a co-worker, Justin, were busy Thursday morning applying wild flower seeds to a project in the Village of Hamburg where some of that compost was put to use. They were converting the rear of a dental practice into a mixed space, a parking lot and self-sustaining garden.
Majewski explained that he first came into contact with the Zoo about using their animal waste when a colleague introduced him to a colleague who worked in one of the zoo's exhibits.
"The conversation came up about a year or two ago, and finally materalized in March," he said. "There were some skeptical conversations and some fears. They were a little apprehensive about the pathogens that could be included in there."
But Majewski was able to convince zoo officials that he would be able to safely prepare the manure for composting.
"I do what's called thermophilic composting. I strictly manage the piles until they get to a certain temperature that kills all the pathogens and weed seeds, and then continue to monitor it, sort of as a bell curve, up and down, until the product's complete."
Among the uses of the compost is the filtration of stormwater runoff from water before it returns to the water table. In addition to Dr. Barbara Moore's dental office in Hamburg, Majewski is applying zoo-enriched compost to projects at Buffalo RiverWorks, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and the Central Terminal's Urban Habitat Project.
The arrangement saves the Zoo money, Majewski said. And while he revealed to the Buffalo News that he gets a free Zoo membership in exchange, he also gets precious materials that are critical for creating the ideal composts.
"We always have to ensure that any media that we're using has the increased microbial life in it, in order to continue to succeed," Majewski said. "These projects, in order for them to be sustainable, we want these working just as well, if not better, ten years from now. You have to include all that organic matter and microbiology, the fungi, archaea and bacteria."
The remainder of that dental office mixed space, Majewski noted, was also designed with green thinking in mind. The parking lot uses concrete as opposed to asphalt, in order to minimize runoff. That concrete does not use steel for support but rather relies on fibers for strength. Additionally, it's tilted in a way that brings all rainwater into a filtration system that then releases the cleaned water into the garden.
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