Who’s Doing It? Home, Neighborhood, School, and Special Event Composting in Action

June 26, 2013

This article presents rural and small town case study examples of home, neighborhood, school, and special event composting programs in action.

• Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District promotes backyard composting and home digesters through educational outreach and sales of compost bins and the Green Cone digester.
• Annapolis Royal is a small Canadian town located in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia (population 481). The town has adopted a zero waste goal. The town provides curbside collection on a biweekly basis for recyclables and garbage, and promotes home composting and neighborhood composting for organics management. Green Cones for backyard composting of food scraps and grease are sold through the Town Hall. “Neighborhood Composters” are large wooden composters are built and maintained by the town for residents to compost virtually all types of household organics food scraps and yard waste. The Neighborhood Composters are promoted as a way for residents, who due to health or location (such as apartment dwellers), who are not able to participate in backyard composting.
• Ionia County is a rural county in Michigan (population 63,905; population density 107 people per square mile); it is comprised of three towns each with populations under 11,300, along with several townships, villages, and unincorporated areas. The county has an excellent website promoting home composting.
• The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA), a non-profit recycling cooperative, uses cooperative purchasing to offer lower prices on purchases of backyard compost bins, rain barrels, kitchen scrap pails, and compost turners for sale. NRRA offers municipalities, community groups or service organizations around New Hampshire the opportunity to sell the items at lower than retail prices and to use the sale as a fundraising opportunity.
• Vermont Master Composter program is managed by UVM Extension Master Gardener with financial and technical support from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation Waste Management Division. Students are required to complete community volunteer work in order to be certified.
• Kittitas County, a rural county in Washington (population 40,915; population density 14 people per square mile) offers a free Master Composter Workshop to groups. Master Composters receive valuable reference materials and composting tools, learn about composting methods, including composting with red worms, and how to maintain your compost. Once receiving the training, Master Composters are asked to volunteer at least 15 hours to share their composting skills, including establishing compost demonstration sites.

• Douglas County is located in Washington (population 38,431; population density 18 people per square mile). The Douglas County Master Composters are trained volunteers dedicated to promoting backyard composting through education and public awareness. The program provides speakers for civic and service organizations, schools, and church groups. Master Composters offer advice on composting yard debris and food scraps; set-up displays and exhibits for classrooms, civic groups, fairs, festivals and community events; provide classroom presentations and activities for teachers and students, including worm bin demonstrations; and, provide technical assistance to backyard composters and gardeners.
• Jefferson County Solid Waste Management provides solid waste management services in Jefferson County, a semi-rural county in Missouri (population density 302 people per square mile). The District promotes composting and vermi-composting through workshops at the libraries located in the County and one at the Byrnes Mill Recycling Center. The average attendance at the workshops is 35 participants. The program also targets schools, providing presentations and assistance for outdoor composting or worm composting; schools are provided with worm bins upon request. The annual cost for the program is around $6,000 for the workshops, promotion and advertising, worms and worm bins, compost bins for demonstration sites, and staffing. Follow-up surveys of participants indicate that 75% of those who attended the workshops now compost.
• Manchester Essex (MA) Regional Middle School, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, in Essex County, Massachusetts, (population 5,136) has a very successful Green Team. The Green Team’s multi-faceted waste reduction, recycling, and composting program have resulted in a 90% reduction in the school’s waste stream. The program has been so successful that it is now conducted in all of the district’s schools.
• West Side School in Healdsburg, in Sonoma County, California (population of 11,254) diverts its food scraps through a worm composting program.  The K-6 school, with approximately 130 students, sells its sifted and bagged compost at a local farmers' market. The program teaches the children sustainable practices and has raised $1000 a year consistently for the school.
• The Compost Club works with schools around Sonoma County, to worm compost. Nine schools participate, resulting in more than 185,000 pounds of food scraps and soiled paper being diverted from the landfill. Vegan food scraps are fed to the worms; remaining food scraps are collected by a pig farmer. Compost is bagged and sold in scrap cloth materials. Parents and students participate in the harvest, bagging, and labeling of the finished soil amendment.
• Westwood Elementary School in Enumclaw, in King County, Washington (population 10,669) is a King County Green School collects food scraps and food soiled paper for composting. The school has a 54% recycling rate.
• Boston Harbor Elementary located in a rural area of Thurston County, Washington, participates in the County’s “Food to Flowers” Food Waste Composting Program. The school uses an on-site (in-vessel) Earth Tub for composting.

• Mt. Baker School District, located in Deming, a small town in Whatcom County, Washington (population 353), collects food scraps in an old cement mixer converted into a tumbling composter – known by the students as “Gertie the Regurgitator.”
• Approximately 9,000 people attend SolarFest, Tinmouth, in Rutland County, Vermont (population 613). This three-day event features workshops, exhibitors, children’s activities, and entertainment. SolarFest has been composting since 2009. Organizers require food vendors to use compostable service ware. Volunteers monitor “zero waste” stations that are set up around the event. Trash cans are limited to the portable toilet areas. Compostable materials are hauled by the Rutland County Solid Waste District staff to their compost site.
• Garlic and Arts Festival, Orange, in Franklin County, Massachusetts (population 7,839).  Some 10,000 people attend this two-day event to enjoy entertainment, hundreds of booths, workshops, and more. The Festival has been composting since 2004 and became a zero waste event two years later. Vendors are required to only use compostable service ware. Volunteers staff five zero waste stations throughout the event. The stations are two-colored—green for compost and yellow for recycling, with circular holes through which materials are tossed into lined barrels (compostable bags for compost; clear bags for recyclables). Visible, eye-level signage is connected to the bins, with sample service ware products integrated into the design. On average more than 115 bags of compostable material are collected from the event, weighing around a ton. Two bags of trash are collected from the portable toilet areas.

Next up – Organics Collection Methods.

By Athena Lee Bradley