Community Composting is all about bringing people in your community together, whether it's an existing community group such a neighborhood association, church, school, community garden or workplace; or a group coming together solely for this purpose, to divert their food waste, yard trimmings, and other organic matter, from landfill, and compost them instead.
Community members can compost at home and use the compost in their own gardens. However, at-home composting doesn't generate enough heat to break down animal products (like meat, cheese, or bones) or biodegradable packaging. So the benefit of coming together as a community is that together you will have enough food waste to employ a local composting company to come and pick up your food waste from a centralized location, and these companies have the equipment to break down all food waste and compostable materials into useable compost!
If your group is affiliated to a community garden the finished compost can even be used to fertilize your soil. Many municipal composting programs return composted food waste back to local farmers, creating higher-yield crops and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.
Community Composting is all about bringing people in your community together, whether it's an existing community group such a neighborhood association, church, school, community garden or workplace; or a group coming together solely for this purpose, to divert their food waste, yard trimmings, and other organic matter, from landfill, and compost them instead.
Community members can compost at home and use the compost in their own gardens. However, at-home composting doesn't generate enough heat to break down animal products (like meat, cheese, or bones) or biodegradable packaging. So the benefit of coming together as a community is that together you will have enough food waste to employ a local composting company to come and pick up your food waste from a centralized location, and these companies have the equipment to break down all food waste and compostable materials into useable compost!
If your group is affiliated to a community garden the finished compost can even be used to fertilize your soil. Many municipal composting programs return composted food waste back to local farmers, creating higher-yield crops and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.
Rose Circle Park Planting Party Sunday April 14th. 2-5 pm
Waste Free West End will donate finished compost to the garden and we will come together to plant flowers and veggies and learn about permaculture practice of fruit tree guilds in the Rose Circle Orchard. Family Friendly. More details here:
Where can we drop off small amounts of compost? I can’t keep one of the large swap-able bins in my condo, but I’m looking to empty my countertop pail. Thank you!
I saw this article about curbside composting in Decatur. In the future we will all have curbside compost pickup because it makes sense to compost! https://decaturish.com/2023/06/decatur-launching-pilot-program-for-curbside-composting-pickup/
It makes even more sense to backyard compost in your local community :)
Look at the numbers
Decatur:
curbside pickup
1 yr trial
250 participants
cost: $170,000
West End/Sylvan Hills/Washington park with Waste Free West End:
Multiple local Drop off locations
1 yr trial and now ongoing to the foreseeable future
115 participants ( at least expressed interest)
cost $1,750