Urban Stream composter captures circle of life in a shipping container – Vancouver BC

Nick Hermes is the founder of green-tech startup Urban Stream Innovation that has created a way to eliminate organic waste. Photograph by: Mark Van Manen.

Self-contained system is small enough to fit in a single parking space

By Randy Shore
Vancouver Sun
February 22, 2013

Excerpt:

Urban Stream Innovation, a Vancouver-based sustainable tech firm, has installed its first self-contained prototype composter and vertical growing system designed to eliminate kitchen waste and produce restaurant-quality herbs and greens.

The staff at Luke’s Corner Bar & Kitchen will donate about 45 kilograms of vegetable waste, old coffee grounds and used tea bags each day to the micro-farm’s two-stage composter housed in a shipping container, parked behind the Granville Street eatery.

What they get back – two-and-half kilos of herbs and arugula a day – will be served to their customers in salads, sauces and entrées.

Luke’s will buy the produce for market value.

“When you taste the freshness of a product from right out the back door, there’s no comparison (to store-bought),” said Luke’s owner Mark Roberts.

Read the complete article here.