Dollars and sensibilities
The collection service costs $20 per month for residents. Institutions and businesses — Gomen Kudasai Noodle Shop, Suruchi Indian Restaurant and Lagusta’s Luscious vegan chocolatiers are already clients — pay by volume and frequency of pick-up. The collection service is a bit of a hard sell for residents, Banyra admits, in that people can pay $30 a month for regular waste removal and put anything they want to in the can, but she hopes that once people relate to the concept of composting they’ll be motivated to participate. People can also share a bucket with a neighbor or two and share the cost of pickup, as well. The weekly drop-off service at the farmer’s market in town is offered for $2-$3 a visit. Banyra is making plans for a winter drop-off location when the market closes for the season.
The obvious question, of course, is, if people don’t want to pay for the collection service or are just paying a few dollars here and there for drop-off, how will the business stay in business? “The other part of the program is the compost part, making soil amendments at the farms,” says Banyra. “We’re working on coming up with a percentage system where the farms will keep some of the material to use and we’ll take some of the material and sell it; that’s where we’re hoping to make some revenue.”
Inspiration
Banyra works as a consultant for municipalities in New Jersey in the area of environmental land use. A lifelong environmentalist, she was an outdoor educator in early adulthood and then became a community planner. “I love everything about environmental land use planning,” she says. “I’m able to potentially affect a lot of change in a community. But over the past few years, I’ve grown tired of writing policy documents and not physically doing something more hands-on.”
After going to a meeting of the U.S. Composting Council, Banyra started “putting together the environmental pieces,” she says. “Waste is a huge portion of any community’s budget, and food waste being thrown out is a huge environmental problem. I saw other people doing collection around the country and started looking at what they’re doing to get organic waste out of the waste stream. It’s important on so many different levels, and I felt like this is something I can really wrap my arms around.”
Ultimately, Banyra hopes to inspire people to compost regardless of whether they use her service or not to do it. “We’re trying to emphasize that people compost, but if you can do it yourself, don’t send it to me. But if you’re not going to do it, then please call us.”
It’s about changing the way we think, she says. “It sounds like such a little thing, but look at what you’re buying and reduce what you buy — sometimes we buy food on sale or we think we’re going to make something and then don’t cook, it rots and you throw it out. Make a shopping list after looking in the fridge first so you don’t end up throwing out things you forgot about. Think about all the resources that go into food production.”
The big picture
“It’s the next type of recycling,” says Banyra. “And it has to happen, really. More than 60 percent of all waste going into landfills is organic material, and 25 to 30 percent of that is food waste.” She projects that at some point — maybe in as little as five years — we will all be required to take organics out of our garbage in the same way we now routinely recycle paper and containers. It’s already happening on a larger scale, she says, referencing the legislation recently passed in Massachusetts that requires any business or institution that produces more than one ton of waste per week to divert organic material from the waste stream. [According to Mass.gov, the statewide law will take effect October 1 and be regulated by their state Department of Environmental Protection. Food waste will be shipped to an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility, where it will be converted to clean energy or sent to composting and animal-feed operations, resulting in a 30 percent reduction in the waste stream by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.]
Removal of organic matter from landfills reduces atmospheric CO2 levels that are contributing to climate change, and returning organic food scraps to the earth as compost improves the quality and complexity of the soil’s microorganisms and reduces water use (the addition of one inch of compost per acre will hold an additional 16,500 gallons of water).
For more information, call (845) 787-DIRT (3478) or visit www.communitycompostco.com.
I applaud the effort customers make to source recycle and the patience of the business operator/hauler to pull contaminants out of the pails and piles until users know better. Recycling to compost requires the grinding of some food wastes to make composting easier. The 1 acre backyard and farm based compost operations I know of are viable to about a tonne per month. A manager is required to regulate the layering of carbon between green waste. Other tools like a mini-AD or a CITYPOD can be viable business opportunities but must come with monthly regulation checks and balances. These tools simplify the volumes and make a 500 lbs per day allowance of food waste more readily accessible – onsite in urban environment for the CITYPOD.