Composting without Fossil Fuels
Composting without Fossil Fuels:
Check out this amazing Red Hook Farms, an urban farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn that produces over 150 tons of compost every year with just hand tools. No trucks or transport needed. They then provide free compost away to the residents such as community gardens, and are funded by the city. They compost in right in the heart of Brooklyn, and use a special sealing method to eliminate rats and scavengers from getting into it. They also use the composting site as an educational center to help people understand where their waste goes and also how to compost themselves. Genius. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!
It is great that this compost system works so perfectly in Brooklyn, which is surrounded by people without landscapes to compost in, and it diverts so much waste from the landfill.
This reminds me idea of my idea of starting an On-Site Composting Service in Colorado, to be recycled right in people’s backyards! I love compost, but having a big diesel truck collect it every week seems silly when we can compost our food scraps and other compostables right in our landscapes, if we’re lucky enough to have yard space! But even if we have a yard, most of us don’t know where to start when it comes to composting, so having an educational service that can setup a compost bin, and then provide either the ongoing composting services and/or show us how to do it over time so that we feel comfortable with composting before continuing on our own, would be a perfect way to get people into composting!
The idea is to eliminate trucks entirely from the compost cycle. In Denver, for example, we could have on-site composting services setup and/or training provided by people on bikes.
Compost is something every landscape needs, so instead of moving the compostable items to a different location with polluting vehicles, why not get everyone setup in their own landscape to compost so it can be used on site? Free compost anyone? I always think the homegrown kind is better than the sterilized bags of compost you get from the store. Making your own compost saves you money ands cuts down on plastic and resources. And it’s easy! Or, if you are not able to do it you could just continue to have the service come weekly to add kitchen scraps and other compostables to the bin, turn it periodically, and provide the finished compost regularly to be added to landscapes. Read more about this idea »
Read more about Red Hook Farms »