ZerO Waste Golf, what does it mean to you?

ZerO Waste Golf reminds me not to waste strokes on the course.  Nothing gripes me more than to waste a perfectly great drive by duffing my second shot.

ZerO Waste Golf reminds me to keep my head down and my eyes open for emerging opportunities. Opportunities are like inspirations. Anybody that wastes opportunities or inspirations is too dull to succeed on the golf course, anyway.

ZerO Waste Golf reminds me not to waste time on the course. I hate following slow play.  ZerO Waste Golf  reminds  that when you feel it, step up and swing it . Come one guys, it's a ready-golf world out there.

ZerO Waste Golf reminds me that I'm not that great of a golfer. It reminds me that I'm on the golf course to have fun, not to compete with Tiger Woods. ZerO Waste Golf reminds me not to waste a moment of golf's fun.

Jerry Nucci, ZerO Waste Golf Pioneer

So often, in history, we hear the stories of pioneers, whose genuine dedication to simple projects have built the essential foundations of a better future. This is the case with the story of Jerry Nucci.

Five years ago, a few of my friends and I decided to promote zero waste through demonstrations of using worms bins and vessel composters to divert food and organic wastes from landfill and as a means of creating valuable soil ammendments.  None of us had ever actually even used a worm bin or compost pile before, so it seemed appropriate to start learning how to be successful at building and maintaining a worm population, or a dynamic compost operation. So, I bought six pounds of worms online.

About five pounds of the redworms crawled away or died in the first week. They simply hated the environment I first created. Having seen worms naturally attracted to my test compost pile, I decided to throw my remaining worms into the compost.

My first attempt at composting wasn't going so well either. Seems that a compost won't start getting heat unless it has a particular volume, about a cubic meter. My wife and I didn't make enough food waste at home  to give the demonstration the scale it required. Enter Jerry Nucci, owner of Nucci's Pizzaria, who started giving me all his pre-consumer lettuce wastes to put into the compost everyday. Discarding the outer leaves and the luttice hearts, that little restaurant produced an average of 20 pounds of lettuce per day. The worms really liked the lettuce scraps, and they prospered.

It was because of the success of that worm bin demonstration that county officials finally took serious note of our work, and they gave us a location and support to expand our vision. And that's how the ZerO Waste Park at Dairy Creek started.

I managed and maintained the worms and the composting at our park for the first year or so. Every day, I drove a couple of miles to the golf course, I gathered up the food wastes from the food and beverage concession, I fed the worms, I stirred the compost, I raked and swept. I gave and talks greeted the guests. I was getting tired, but I had not yet attracted any volunteers to help maintain the fledgling park. I was beginning to wonder if the project would actually become a sustainable program.

That's when Jerry Nucci offered to help me a couple of mornings per week. Jerry breathed life back into the gasping patient. After Jerry and I operated the park for another year, another fellow, Jim Matthias, offered to help as well. Now we have three workers, who contribute one or two hours per week each. Now it's easy.

Well, Jerry Nucci has had enough. He doesn't want to do the composting any more, but he will still bring his lettuce scraps to the worms. It's been five years since Jerry Nucci started supporting our zero waste park ideas. Without him, we would not be where we find ourselves today. The success we are enjoying today would have been impossible without the generous support of Jerry Nucci.

Jerry told me he was done on Monday. By Tuesday, Paul Van Beurdan volunteered to replace him. I really feel like the volunteer system for ZerO Waste Park maintenance is secured now, as we make our first replacements to our volunteer staff. This system looks like it will last. Free golf and cart for the volunteer compensation probably doesn't hurt, either!

Jerry Nucci went beyond the worm and compost demonstration. Jerry made a demonstration of contribution, of service and support. It's his demonstration of community activism that eventually attracted Jim, and eventually Paul, to become ZerO Waste Golfers. Thank you Jerry Nucci. Thank you for what you've done for the game of golf, what you've done for our community, and what you've done for me.

ZerO Waste Golf is a Mantric Phrase

In many cultures mantras are used, like computer icons, to represent complex ideas, or as a gateway to a state of awareness about a particular topic. A mantra is a reduction of the complexities of the concept. It works like this; A complex concept is reduced to a library, and then to a book, and then to a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase, a word, a sound. At this point, the sound represents the whole library. The beauty of a real mantra is that it works to represent whichever facet of the topic the individual is open to at any particular time, and that it continues to represent the idea as the individual grows into a more comprehensive awareness in time.

While our experience with the phrase "ZerO Waste Golf" is somewhat limited, we find that the mantric quality of the phrase seems to resonate with a wide audience. The phrase initiates discussion as to its meaning time after time. It's easy to find common ground in any discussion of the meaning of the phrase, as it allows for a great deal of positive creativity in the argument.

It is my belief that zero waste will become the global standard for environmental policy making. It is already the official policy statement of the United States. Governments already know that the term zero waste gives them infinite latitude on defining the policy, without being too specific, and that works for them to maintain nonspecific regulatory control over the variety of potential definitions. The biggest problem with zero waste as a widly defined concept is in finding a specific action or demonstration that can be used to illustrate the policy.

Zero Waste Golf is the type of specific action and demonstration that governing authorities can use to promote their goals for waste management awareness and actions to their constituents. It could be anticipated that different countries, cultures, regions or communities will have a variety of specific environmental problems or opportunities that are more important to that community than to others. ZerO Waste Golf has the flexibility to address those specifics, and should, as to serve the community's particular needs.

The greatest opportunity for individual golf courses, acting in their communities, as well as for the golf industry in general, is to be the entity that introduces the zero waste mantra, and its library of possible meanings, to their communities, regions, countries and world. The golf industry, in step with, or in anticipation of toughening governmental restrictions, could become the world leader in zero waste consciousness. This type of leadership will help to overcome the perception of golf courses as the environmentally harmful havens of the rich minority. When the golf course, and the golf industry inspires the communities it serves to make positive environmental changes in its waste management protocols, the golf course opens itself to the community in a way that overcomes the perception that golf courses are only for the rich or elite.

Report :ZerO Waste Golf after two years of operation

I'm happy to report that ZerO Waste Golf is turning out to be a great success as we begin our third year of operation.!

We were really hoping that our environmental demonstrations would inspire others in our community to join our efforts to divert food wastes and compostables from the landfill. We have hosted so many interested groups, businesses, students, scientists and others who came from as far away as New York to see our first in the nation operation. Now, we are really starting to see change in our community. Restaurants and institutions are really starting to get the idea about diverting their compostables from the landfill. In the past weeks, we have hosted 2 groups of restaurant and business owners who want to go zero waste in their operations. When they asked for advice from our waste management authority, they were referred to us , because of our experiences in the past couple of years.

When they realized, after dealing with us at Dairy Creek Golf Course, that all our local golf courses were lacking in proper waste and recycle containers, our regional waste management authority applied for and was granted a $100,000 dollar grant from the state of California with the purpose of purchasing some beautiful waste and recycling containers for each tee area on every course in the county. How wonderful, that our little demonstration has started to produce its fruits.

The US golf industry are getting to know that we're serious and they're starting to offer us support and funding for some of the scientific testing we're doing with California Polytechnic State University. Recently, we were contacted by interested golf developers about traveling to China to speak and to share information about the zero waste golf methods and trends that are developing around the country.

We operate the composting, vermiculture, and compost tea brewing with minimal labor. We have three volunteers who operate the whole deal in exchange for some free rounds of golf. There doesn't seem to be a lack of waiting volunteers who will do this duty for free golf, so we feel that the operation will continue well into the future, even as staff come or go throughout the years to come.

This blog, although it has been a while since I updated it, continues, day after day to spread the message about ZerO Waste Golf to interested persons around the globe. While it's not an astounding number, the blog averages 50 pageviews per day, day after day. The  most interesting thing about the blog readership is that 40 or more out of the 50 per day come from Norway. Every day it's the same...ZerO Waste Golf is very popular in Norway. Thank you, Norwegians!

This has been a very enjoyable project so far. Environmental leadership is very rewarding when your work starts making a difference. Thank you everyone.

Simple actions inspire change

As a direct result of our efforts in developing the world's first zero waste golf course. we are seeing positive change in our local community.

When I first pitched zero waste to our golf superintendent, Josh Heptig, I pointed out that there were no recycle containers on the entire golf course property. Josh explained to me how the maintenance staff sorted the waste stream behind the scenes. Seemed reasonable, and we went on to other topics of zero waste discussion.

One of our first major zero waste partners, Bill Worrell of San Luis Obispo County's Integrated Waste Management Authority, who donated our two vessel composters, looked around the county and realized that NONE of the other golf courses had adequate recycle containers. So, Bill Worrell applied for a $220,000 grant from CalRecycle, got the money and is purchasing all new containers for every course in the county. That's 200,000 examples of how simple actions inspire change.

When my two friends and I started our environmental club, our first project was to host the waste management at Morro Bay's 2008 Harbor Festival. We promoted zero waste by sorting out compostables, reusables and  recyclables from the festival waste stream. We constructed ZerO Waste Stations constructing plywood panels into three sided towers which gave us signage opportunities around which to place the various containers. We hosted the stations to offer information and assistance with the festival crowds. Today, almost every major event in the county utilizes similar hosted zero waste stations. A local Eco-Rotary club has adopted zero waste event management as a pillar of their club constitution, and do dozens of events every year since they chartered their club.

Simple actions inspire change.

Every step along the way of developing the ZerO Waste Park at Dairy Creek has been a very easy one. We never really did much, except a little politicing, a little carpentry, a little digging, etc....but the results or our efforts are beginning to show themselves as greater than that which inspired them. It's very satisfying to see that ones simple local actions can really inspire greater change in our global community.

Zero waste is all about sorting.

In today's increasing environmental awareness, sorting our waste streams into recyclables, reusables, compostables (and some trash) is a skill we all strive to perfect in our quest for zero waste. It's the same at Dairy Creek Zero Waste Park, where we all work together to reduce the amount of contamination in the sorted catagories.

We have organized our clubhouse compost, recycle and trash recepticles and placed signage instructing golfers and course staff where to place the various items we expect to generate on site. Sometimes unspecified items come in from offsite or confused depositors put the wrong items in the wrong can. That's OK, When we empty the cans, we sort again to fish recyclables out of the trash can, and trash or compost out of the recyclables.

The food waste is often contaminated as well. What we encounter in the food wastes we get from the kitchen is plastic wraps, straws, rubber gloves, aluminum foil and little plastic dipping sauce cups. We fish the plastic out of the food wastes as we load it into the compost vessel. Sometimes we miss some plastic and we just keep picking it out of the composter or finally, out of the finished compost before it's used on the course.

Sorting and processing is what we're all tasked to do, whether at work or at home. No longer can we leave it all up to someone else to unwrap the stinking sandwich from the plastic wrap before we throw it in the trash. Take a minute and unwrap it and throw the plastic in the reclycler and the sandwich in the compost, OK?  If we really care about the local or global environment, we should all take a minute more to sort or process any waste products with which we come into contact.

In our municipality, we have special material recovery facilities at the landfill site that have expert workers and automated sorting technologies to recover all recyclables. I always tell visitors to the zero waste park that when there's a question as to whether something is recyclable or not, put it in the recycle bin because the experts and machines have the last look.

Please sort responsibly.

ZerO Waste and golf were simply made for each other

I was at an Eco-Rotary meeting in Morro Bay last night where the main topic of discussion was planning another zero waste park at Morro Bay Golf Course. Morro Bay Eco-Rotary is a club that has really advanced the zero waste message. In the past year they have managed the waste at every significant local event, from harbor festival to Car Show. In this second year they are already committed for every weekend to do the zero waste thing at events. Because of their efforts in the past year, most regional public gatherings are making the effort to seperate and manage their waste streams.

Eco-Rotarians sort event wastes into 4 catagories: recycle, compost, liquid, and trash (although in an attempt to finish the event with an empty trash container, they also advise event planners about percycle strategies to prevent trash wastes before they occur) They're composting the event food and organic wastes in their own compost operation, but they really don't have the room or proper equipment to do the job effeciently since theier waste management services have become so popular.

I was happy to learn that MB Eco-Rotary was planning on moving their community zero waste services headquarters to our second zero waste golf course compost facility to be located at Morro Bay Golf Course, which is another San Luis Obispo County managed course, under the direction of superintendent Josh Heptig. Eco-Rotary has also prototyped a residential compost club where area residents can bring their weekly food scraps to contribute in the diversion of organics to the land fill. The new MBGC zero waste facility will attract environmentally sensitive groups and individuals to the course. It will become a community center for composting and zero waste demonstrations and information. What a wonderful way to bring the public to the golf course. What a great way to offer additional public services from an existing facility.

One of the best aspects of combining golf courses  and zero waste is the fact that golf courses can benefit so greatly from the compost products that are generated. It's a natural balance....a golf course can easily absorb more compost than they can produce from their own organic waste stream  and the public need access to a regional facility for composting, recycling and environmental education. No Better place than the golf course for the land and the people to come together to protect the local and global environment.