[Community_garden] Incredible Composting Success

[Sharon Gordon]

Some of the  community gardens in our area have started working to reduce
the waste  sent to the landfill.  In previous years the county would send
one of the gardens three Mack truck sized dumpsters for Spring Clean Up Day
which the gardeners would dutifully fill up --mostly with compostable or
reusable items.  This spring by accident they sent the three they usually
have plus two that were supposed to go to another garden.  The gardeners
dutifully filled all five of those up.  They were able to divert some things
that were recyclable which gardeners who have recycling in their area took
home and put in their recycle bins.  The gardeners also diverted rocks and a
few other reusable items by having signs where people could leave/take
items.

When the bins were checked  late the day before pickup, one of the gardeners
was able to pull out 30+ tomato cages, a garden chair, a pile of tomato and
fence stakes, and a bunch of old tools that were on the tops of the bins,
but was not strong enough to get out the heavy fencing that had gone to the
bottom of one of the bins.  Unfortunately there wasn't anyone around strong
enough to help that evening either.  All the pulled out items went to
gardeners who could make use of them.

So 150 cubic yards of mixed waste went to the landfill in March.  Probably
90% of it could have been composted.  Perhaps 5% of it could have been
reused.  The rest would have gone to the landfill anyway as the county can't
do anything with it (unusable treated lumber, rusty wire fencing, some
plastic items which are made of types of plastic they can't recycle).

Over the course of the year, the community gardens had workshops on
composting, and the wonderful lady that is head of the county's recycling
gave the gardens recycle carts for the garden and individual compost bins
for the plots.

In November that garden had a huge Fall Clean Up Day.  Everyone who helped
got first dibs on the weeds for their own compost bins.  Any things that
were damaged but recyclable such as falling apart milk jugs that had been
used for plant covers went into the recycle carts.  Things that people no
longer wanted went to other gardeners who could use them.

At the end there was less than a sandwich baggie of trash for the landfill.

Sharon
gordonse at one.net