Reflection on Zero-Waste Brewing
My
individual project was a success in many ways, the most notable being that it
made me more aware of the importance of small actions and forced me to re-think
how I live. Brewing beer popped into my head after a month of bottles piled up
in my new apartment and made me aware of how much waste I am responsible for
everyday. Even if I did plan to recycle the bottles, research found that most beer bottling companies only utilize 12.5% recycled
glass1.
Being short on cash but high in energy, I decided to brew my own!
Successes:
- 3 awesome batches of homebrewed beer!
- Went from recycling or throwing out ~45 bottles per month in my household to zero, beginning in September.
- Approximately 135 bottles saved
- Re-purposed about 75% of water required to brew (~ 18 gallons)
- Incorporated spent grains (usually a waste product) into cookies, granola, and baked goods
- Shared bottling equipment
Quantitative Aspects
Reflection:
The
project ‘s biggest quantitative success was the approximately 135 bottles
saved. This not only saves glass and the energy involved in making new bottles,
but also heavy transportation costs, labeling and packaging costs, and costs
associated with making the purchase itself (more gas, miles etc). It also means
that my roommate and I will save ~540 bottles each year that I brew, and after
tasting how delicious home brew can be, I am planning on continuing for a long
time, meaning even more savings in these categories in the future.
New Belgium Brewing Co. 37.6% of calculated carbon footprint due to glass bottling
Half
of the brewing equipment (all the bottling gear) was borrowed from a friend who
also brews- saving me around $60 and saving a considerable amount of excess
plastic. Since each of us only need the equipment 1 day a month it makes more
sense to work out a sharing program between local brewers rather than each
person having a full set of equipment.
Because
I began to require more bottles as I brewed consecutive batches, friends saved
bottles for me and started trading me homemade food and wine for beer! Sharing
and trading are at the heart of any strong community and brewing via this
project has helped solidify more personal bonds and piqued considerable
interest among acquaintances.
Re-used
approximately 18 gallons of waste water used to clean brewing equipment to wash
my dishes and clean my bathtub- now a monthly routine.
After
the first batch of beer, I began to incorporate spent grains into cookies,
granola, and waffles, producing almost zero waste from the process. I even use
the malt containers as cookie jars!
Qualitative
Aspect Reflection:
This
success of this project was not only focused on quantitative components, but
also on the many additional lessons learned throughout the project that corresponded with topics discussed in class. The combination of learning about the larger importance of water and energy conservation, cultivating greener, food secure communities, and waste reduction and recycling while focusing on a zero-waste project helped me to understand these concepts on both a macro and micro level. While in class we tended to focus on the wider effects of policy on communities, regions, and the world, my individual project was also teaching me how to be a conscious citizen of the earth without any policy implementation.
Forcing myself to plan ahead to brew as
sustainably as possible seeped into other aspects of my life and made me
acutely aware of wasteful water use behavior and food waste in other aspects of
my life. For instance, I noticed that after successfully incorporating wet
grains into baked goods, almost all the ‘borderline’ food in my fridge could
also be used in other forms instead of tossed into the garbage. I also noticed that by trying to find ways to
re-purpose water, that I began thinking of saving water in other aspects of my
daily routine. Completing this project with the goal of zero-waste made me
think more about the brewing process overall and also drew my attention to how
much waste I produce that I never acknowledged, and ideas to reduce these
numbers.
A delicious way to incorporate a byproduct of the brewing process into brewing routine!
Problems
The
main problem that I’ve found with trying to accomplish zero-waste brewing is
the energy lost through heat during the boiling process. I’ve found that during the winter an easy
solution to re-using the heat energy given off during brewing can be used to
heat my apartment temporarily. Between
the stovetop heat from extended boils and the heat from baking with the spent
grains, my small apartment heats up pretty nicely for about 4 hours. Not a lot
of savings but it’s a little more sustainable. Also, for my next batch I am
planning to use the cold winter weather to my advantage and brew a lager.
Lagers require at least 6 weeks of refrigeration (expensive and energy
intensive)…or the temperature of a poor students’ apartment in an Indiana
winter.
Future
Impact/Statistics:
Statistics show that the average
college student drinks 7.44 alcoholic beverages per week2. Even if
we attribute only half of that to beer (bottled or canned) that accounts for 15,475,200
beer containers/year on the IU Bloomington campus alone. If everyone brewed their
own beer, the saving in glass, aluminum, energy, transportation, packaging,
trash pickup etc, the saving to the environment and society would be immense! I
don’t think that a huge number of college students would have the time or
interest that home brewing takes, but it is fairly easy, requires very little
equipment and depending on what type of ingredients you use, can be
significantly less expensive than purchasing beer from the store- and that is
not including the externalities mentioned above.
This
project has forced me to analyze every decision in a fairly complex process and
use creativity to find the most sustainable solutions to an array of different
behaviors.
1 New Belgium Brewing Co.http://www.newbelgium.com/sustainability/stories/14-02-28/A-Snapshot-of-our-Footprint.aspx.
2 Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Studies-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3394678/3 NCES (2014). U.S. Department of Education "Fast Facts Enrollment"
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