Its quarter-acre lot houses custom-built tool sheds and water pumps, solar panels for charging phones and e-bikes, and a motorized sifter designed by Gross. As the pair worked, a steady trickle of locals stopped at the entrance to drop off kitchen scraps—not trash, but the makings of “black gold.” Thanks to careful management, even on this balmy day the steaming heaps of rotting vegetables didn’t give off an offensive odor. “I actually like the smell,” Gross said during a break from work.

BK Rot is part of a diverse ecology of community compost organizations throughout New York City. For decades, with crucial support via the city’s NYC Compost Project, community composters have taken a small but significant part of the roughly 4,000 tons of organic waste generated by New Yorkers every day and converted it into a valuable resource.

Food scraps and landscaping debris, rather than going “out of sight” to landfills, where they emit significant greenhouse gases, are transformed into material that sustains local gardens, fortifies the city’s heat-mitigating tree population, and remediates contaminated soils. Meanwhile, local residents are educated and empowered to manage their own waste, less pollution goes into transporting and processing food scraps, and community bonds are deepened.

Community composting is a cherished part of many neighborhoods throughout New York. But its future is unclear. In November of last year, under Mayor Eric Adams and his sanitation department’s new commissioner, Jessica Tisch, the NYC Compost Project was cut entirely from the city budget. So was a contract with the nonprofit GrowNYC, which operated dozens of food-scrap drop-off locations throughout the city, processing millions of pounds of scraps each year.

The cuts decimated community compost operations, costing dozens of jobs, closing down numerous processing locations, and curtailing educational programming. All to save around $7 million, a mere 0.006 percent of the city’s budget, or “less than a rounding error,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said at a recent rally in front of New York City Hall.

After an immense pressure campaign by activists, members of the city council, and other elected representatives, funding was restored at the end of June. With the vote, the budget for community compost was placed under the New York City council instead of the city’s sanitation department.

“I’m hoping that this will be less up for negotiation each budget season,” says Anna Sacks, legislative chair for the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board and co-founder of NYC’s SaveOurCompost coalition. “There’s so much more that we could do, and it ends up by necessity concentrating our efforts onto preserving what’s in existence, versus imagining a more expansive alternative future.”

Saved From the Trash

As community composting evolved, the city also advanced its own curbside collection programs, which rely on contractors for transport and off-site processing. The city generates its own compost at a massive, recently expanded facility in Staten Island, though community composters note that the inconsistent separation of waste going in results in lower quality compost.  In 2016, the city’s anaerobic biogas digester in Newtown Creek began accepting food scraps. Developed in partnership with the National Grid energy company, the giant “digester eggs” receive a mixture of organic waste streams, including sewage.

Rather than creating compost, though, the process produces methane that is burned for energy (and profit), along with an organic sludge that is landfilled. Besides not building soil, critics point out, the system entrenches reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure. Often, the methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is simply flared into the atmosphere.

Biogas and centralized organic waste collection are the other side of the community compost coin. They represent what Guy Schaffer, author of Composting Utopia: Experimental Infrastructures for Organics Recycling in New York City, calls “neoliberal waste management.”

“There’s this pattern that happens in a lot of places, where people try to fix waste problems by creating new markets for waste,” said Schaffer, who is also a board member of BK Rot. In his analysis, such market “solutions” tend to perpetuate social inequities. “We can see the setting of a price on waste so that people have to pay for it, but that often creates a situation where waste winds up getting recuperated by the most marginalized people.”

BK Rot is a somewhat unique example among the city’s community composters. Although it is largely funded by grants, including as part of a crop of new additions to the restored NYC Compost Project, it operates like a business: In exchange for a fee, the nonprofit collects organic scraps from residences and small businesses, hiring local Black and brown youth who haul the material away by cargo bike to be windrowed. The resulting compost can be bought directly onsite, or at local food co-ops, where it is sold in smartly branded pouches resembling bags of designer coffee.

The upshot of BK Rot’s work is that, along with creating a valuable resource and reducing landfill—they claim to have diverted 1.5 million pounds of organic waste to date—it provides work opportunities within a community where gentrification has made such opportunities increasingly scarce. Meanwhile, fewer food scraps fill trash bags on the street corner to attract rats, or fill up trucks and landfills that typically operate near marginalized neighborhoods.

“Bushwick is such a fascinating focal point for thinking about waste inequity and intersectional inequities as they relate to environmental justice,” Nora Tjossem, co-director of BK Rot, said. “[BK Rot] really is an answer to say, ‘Well, what if we can dream up a different system? What if we can address all of these problems at once, or at least a great number of them?’ . . . We can create a system that can actually create green jobs for young people, that can serve as a fossil-fuel-free waste alternative—and even reframe what waste is.”

Grab a Pitchfork

“These interventions are not idealistic escapes from reality,” Schaffer writes in Composting Utopia. “They remake the systems they inhabit. Community composters aren’t trying to figure out if community compost will or won’t work as a solution to New York City’s waste problems, they’re building worlds in which community compost does work, and inviting people to stop by and grab a pitchfork.”

Despite the struggles for funding, community composters remain supportive of the city’s various efforts to divert organic waste. In April 2023, Mayor Adams unveiled an initiative called PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done. Among its promises were an expansion of tree canopies, curbside rain gardens, and green jobs, along with a reduction in emissions. All these aims are helped by community compost, which makes the recent struggles over funding and access to land particularly vexing to community composters, who see their efforts as complementary, while noting that the city has ample funds for projects like a quarter-billion-dollar police training facility.

The Struggle Continues

But the cuts have had lasting consequences. The nonprofit Big Reuse lost access to its Brooklyn Salt Lot site in January as result of rezoning. Since 2011, it had operated a state-of-the-art composting facility underneath the 59th Street Bridge in Queens, composting over 3 million pounds of Parks Department leaves and wood chips. Just last year, it generated 700 cubic yards of compost that went to 154 different parks, schools, community gardens, and various greening projects. The cuts to the Community Compost Project also forced Big Reuse to reduce its staff, and coincided with the loss of access to its Queensbridge site. The city’s Parks Department claimed it needed the site for a parking lot, despite owning an empty lot next door.

All of this underscores the crucial role of land, and of a positive relationship with the city, in enabling community composting. The Queensbridge site closed despite immense public outcry, expressed through representatives, petitions, letters, and public testimony at various hearings, press conferences and rallies. “It’s literally paving paradise to put up a parking lot,” said Eric Goldstein, a lawyer with the National Resources Defense Council who works to protect community composting. Other community composting operations have been disrupted at least in part, including the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Earth Matter, and all four botanical gardens.

Still, many of the city’s leaders do see the value of community compost. Twenty-nine out of 51 city council members, and four of the five borough presidents, signed letters to the mayor and New York Department of Sanitation supporting this summer’s restoration of funding to community composters. More than 49,000 New Yorkers also signed a petition demanding the same, in an effort organized by the SaveOurCompost coalition.

In parallel with the city’s expanding curbside program, community composters will again have the means to develop experimental infrastructures, while also filling the gaps within the city’s waste operations. With proper support, the diverse network of community compost operations can offer a meaningful alternative and complement to centralized, carbon-intensive systems, which in New York currently capture only about 5 percent of organics in the waste stream. The hope among community composters is that the value of what they do is now clear to the city and the public alike, and that New Yorkers will treat food scraps not as trash but an opportunity to improve life in the city.

“I hope that all this drama results in a broader public understanding of what composting is and what is required as a land-based movement,” said Gil Lopez, an activist for community compost and a member of the Queen Solid Waste Advisory Board Board. “Invisibilization of waste is what I believe the mayor and [the department of sanitation] want to make happen. This allows [and] demands the public not think about it once it leaves their home. Community composting humanizes ‘waste’ and transforms it into a local resource and tool for raising ecological literacy, civic engagement, physical activity, and local responsibility for reducing our own impact in environmental injustice.”

This article was updated to include details about New York City’s Staten Island compost facility, and to reflect that Dan Gross designed the sifter used by BK Rot.

The post Can New York City Treat Its Food Scraps As More Than Trash? appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2024/06/10/zero-waste-grocery-stores-in-growth-mode-as-consumers-seek-to-ditch-plastic/ https://civileats.com/2024/06/10/zero-waste-grocery-stores-in-growth-mode-as-consumers-seek-to-ditch-plastic/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:00:24 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56509 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. “I’d be like, ‘Bring your own cup! I see you every day, you get the same drink. I can still do a pretty rosetta or heart on top of […]

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“I’d be like, ‘Bring your own cup! I see you every day, you get the same drink. I can still do a pretty rosetta or heart on top of your latte, but bring your own cup. It’s such a waste!’” Macrino said.

When he moved to Los Angeles in 2016, he and his then-partner decided to open up the city’s first zero-waste grocery shop. Drawing inspiration from the bulk-food-heavy Rainbow Grocery Co-op, one of their favorite haunts in San Francisco, they opened the doors of re_grocery on Earth Day in 2020.

From neat bins, glass jars, and metal canisters, the certified B-Corp offers more than 500 refillable bulk goods including snacks, seeds and nuts, coffee and tea, oils and vinegars, cereals and grains, household items, and bath and body products. The store purchases in buckets and other containers they can return to the supplier for refill or recycle, and customers can bring in their own containers or cloth bags to stock up, or get reusable containers from the store.

In traditional grocery stores, plastic holds everything from apples to trail mix to detergent to water. “Plastic packaging is ubiquitous,” said Celia Ristow, who launched the zero-waste blog Litterless in 2015. (The site is down now, but will be back up this summer, she said.) “It’s cheap, it’s lightweight, if you need to ship, it’s non-breakable. So, there are some real advantages that you have to overcome.”

Yet given some of the shocking statistics—that 95 percent of plastic packaging is disposed of after a single use, that only 9 percent of the plastic ever produced has actually been recycled, and that 72 percent of plastic ends up in landfills or the soil, air, or water—some are trying to figure out how to sell food in a way that prevents plastic from being produced in the first place.

Since opening the first shop in Highland Park, Macrino has opened two additional re_grocery locations in L.A.—and has diverted 500,000 packaging items from the landfill. He would like to continue expanding, eventually to around 10 stores throughout L.A. and then more beyond that. And while the store currently offers delivery throughout the city and the shipping of non-perishables nationwide, he’s currently working to launch the shipping of bulk items nationwide as well, using compostable, biodegradable packaging.

“I really want to change people’s thinking around grocery shopping, around sustainability, around consumerism, around capitalism, thinking about how we can leverage our goals and principles but still run a profitable company,” Macrino said. “It can be done—we’re doing it. But I want to make it bigger than this.”

The first iteration of minimal packaging in stores was the extensive bulk sections in the hippie food stores of the 1960s and ’70s, said Ristow, who currently works as the certification manager for the Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) zero-waste certification. TRUE is offered by Green Business Certification Incorporated (GBCI), the same agency that oversees LEED and other green rating systems.

The second iteration—stores like Macrino’s, which produce little to no waste at all—have taken hold over the last few years, Ristow said. When she began tracking zero-waste and refillery stores in 2015, there were fewer than 10 in the U.S. “It started to explode over the next five years,” she said.

While California and New York are hotspots for zero-waste grocery stores, Ristow also sees them in more unexpected places, like small towns and rural areas, in states like Ohio and Wisconsin. “As this movement took off, the people who started these stores were ordinary citizens. It wasn’t a centralized movement. People said, ‘I think my community needs it,’ and so they began opening them where they lived,” Ristow said.

Larasati Vitoux, originally from France, opened the zero-waste grocery store Maison Jar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, two years ago. European countries are generally at the forefront of efforts to reduce and recycle, and the zero-waste grocery store movement is much more developed there than in the U.S. After visiting her parents in Orléans, France, early in the pandemic, Vitoux noted that their relatively small town, with a population of just over 100,000, supported five zero-waste grocery stores. Meanwhile, in the entire city of New York, with a population of 8.3 million, Vitoux knew of only one, called Precycle.

She saw an opportunity and started to put together a business plan. Her community—home to many young families—immediately embraced her. Eighty percent of her customers are return shoppers, and most live within a 10- to 15-minute walk. “We opened in March 2022, and by the end of the year, for the holidays, we received a lot of cards from people telling us that we were the best thing that happened to the neighborhood that year,” she said.

The business started making money within six months of opening, Vitoux said, and year-over-year sales increased by 50 percent between the first quarters of 2023 and 2024. Additionally, as of their second anniversary in March, the store had sold—in bulk—the equivalent of 1,420 bottles of olive oil, 1,820 jars of nut butters, 762 plastic-packed blocks of tofu, and 2,443 bottles of kombucha.

In addition to offering local and organic food without packaging, plus perishables like fruit and vegetables, eggs, and bread, Vitoux aims to promote a sense of community around ideas of sustainability. The store has hosted a soap-making workshop, speakers on climate change and eco-anxiety, vendor popups, and happy hours, where all items are 20 percent off for a two-hour stretch. (These are very popular, she said.) Maison Jar is also an electronic waste and battery drop-off location and serves as a pickup location for Green Gooding, New York’s first circular economy rental system, which offers people access to small appliances like air fryers, juicers, and popcorn makers.

As she continues building her business, Vitoux is working toward a TRUE zero-waste certification offered by GBCI. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s important to have a third-party certifier say you’re doing things the right way,” she said.

There are, however, a number of challenges to operating a zero-waste grocery store.

“I think the hardest part about it is the consumer wants Costco prices from their local mom-and-pop shop,” Macrino said. “For people owning a small business, it’s hard to compete against those humongous companies.” Re_grocery tries to pass on to consumers the savings that comes from sourcing in bulk. “We’re really trying to be competitive with our pricing as best as we can,” he said. “But there’s not a lot of options for us to choose from. We really are always looking for other suppliers to give us better competitive pricing.”

For Vitoux, New York City rent is very high, and because cleaning and refilling the bulk containers is work-intensive, she also has to invest a lot in her workforce. Plus, because the number of package-free stores in the U.S. is still relatively small, systemic supports like the ones present in her home country do not exist.

In France, after package-free stores started booming in the early 2010s, she said, the government developed rules and regulations for hygiene and sanitization to govern them. Additionally, a zero-waste business association offers training and support to store owners and supply chains for bulk products developed because of the increased demand. (The movement’s ideals are taking hold in the mainstream as well, she said: By 2030, the French government is requiring that grocery stores of more than 4,300 square feet devote at least 20 percent of their sales area to bulk items.)

“The trend in Europe, it was really kind of a grassroots-type of growth and then regulation and supply chain followed,” Vitoux said. “I think it could happen here.”

Ristow sees the bulk aisles of traditional grocery stores as a good option for people looking to cut down on waste without access to a full-on zero-waste shop. At the same time, she hopes that as the package-free grocery movement grows, stores will continue to “invest in the idea of being community sustainability hubs” and will also “find ways to welcome in a larger demographic, maybe people who are more price conscious or need to shop with benefits.”

Some of the most important work these stores are doing, she said, is developing an alternative model to traditional, plastic-heavy grocery stores. “We have to find alternatives that work before we can scale them,” she said.

Macrino, for his part, is committed to figuring out how to scale. “My goal now is how am I going to get this thing so big that I can get a store in every major city and really make a real impact sustainably?” he said. “I think it can be done. And I think we have the tools to do it.”

Ultimately, he hopes for a cultural shift. “Everyone needs to take a step back and think, ‘These short-term instant gratifications are really piling up, and we really need to rethink how we’re operating.’”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/06/10/zero-waste-grocery-stores-in-growth-mode-as-consumers-seek-to-ditch-plastic/feed/ 2 https://civileats.com/2024/06/03/can-ai-help-cut-plastic-waste-from-the-food-system/ Mon, 03 Jun 2024 09:00:08 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56425 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. If all goes according to plan, the result will be a Paris Agreement for plastic. Just like during international climate summits, the companies driving the crisis are showing up […]

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]]> A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox.

If all goes according to plan, the result will be a Paris Agreement for plastic.

Just like during international climate summits, the companies driving the crisis are showing up in numbers to try to shape the outcome of the negotiations. Also familiar: Many advocates and experts say that treaty progress is not moving fast enough given the urgency the situation demands. In a press release commenting on the April meeting in Ottawa, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International pointed out that more than 15 million tons of plastic entered the ocean during the week of negotiations.

“Countries have made important progress in Canada with constructive discussions on what the treaty will actually do, but the big decisions still remain: Will we get the strong treaty with common global rules that most of the world is calling for, or will we end up with a voluntary watered-down agreement led by least-common-denominator values?” said Eirik Lindebjerg, WWF International’s global plastics policy lead. “Negotiators need to recognize that plastic pollution is an accelerating global crisis that cannot be solved with fragmented national approaches.”

Nivedita Biyani, an expert on plastic waste, was in Ottawa attempting to provide policymakers with data they could use to make smarter decisions.

Biyani has been working to understand and improve waste management for about 12 years, in poor neighborhoods in India that lack infrastructure, for the government of Singapore, and now as a researcher at U.C. Santa Barbara (UCSB), where she looks at “mass flows” of plastic—aka “how materials travel through production to end-of-life and become waste.”

Her latest project: the Global Plastics AI Policy Tool, developed with Douglas McCauley, the director of UCSB’s Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory, and Roland Geyer, a prominent industrial ecologist.

Building on a 2017 paper Geyer published that estimated how much plastic had ever been made, the team set out to show what kind of impact 11 policy interventions—including capping production, taxing plastic packaging, and investing in recycling infrastructure—would have on reducing plastic pollution through 2050. To do so, they used a machine learning model, a form of artificial intelligence, that included GDP and population data to model future years.

The tool estimates that in 2024, 129.7 million metric tons of plastic waste will be incinerated, 173.6 million metric tons will end up in landfills, and 73.5 million metric tons will end up in the environment. From there, without drastic changes to business as usual, the numbers just keep climbing.

Recently, Biyani spoke with Civil Eats to explain how policymakers (and others) might use the tool to reduce plastic waste from every sector, especially the food system.

Can you walk us through how this works?

We start the conversation with mismanaged plastic waste. In this model, mismanaged means it’s in the larger environment, either on land or in the sea, basically not being managed the way it should be.

So, what you’re seeing on this axis is you have 2011, and here you have 2050. You can look at, under business as usual, this is the trajectory. Here we are today, at 2024, and we’re at roughly 60-70 million metric tons of mismanaged plastics waste into the larger environment. If we do not do anything, we are likely to reach about 121.5 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste by 2050.

(On the left side above,) you have a collection of 11 different policies like, for example, reduced single-use packaging, reduced additives, a cap on virgin polymer production, or implementing a minimum recycled content. You can even toggle the percentage. So, at its highest, for example, implementing a minimum recycled content mandate would reduce the mass of mismanaged plastic waste at 2050 from 120 million metric tons to 64. And we can toggle all the different policies and see what we get. [If we do everything], we get to something like 17 million metric tons, which is as low as it goes.

When you look at this list of policies governments could implement and how each could reduce mismanaged waste, are there any that stand out as being the most effective at reducing the most waste?

Absolutely. Minimum recycled content [a little more than halfway down the list] is one of the biggest ones that actually reduces mismanaged plastic waste. This is saying that every piece of plastic that we put out should have a [20-40%] minimum recycled content of plastic in it. So, this is not only making sure things get recycled, but that the recycled mass is incorporated into new products. This is a big one.

Another one would be to cap virgin plastic production at 2025 levels. If we capped it, we would see a pretty significant delta, about 31 million metric tons of reduction of mismanaged plastic waste.

And then the other one would be waste infrastructure. This is really speaking to the fact that we need to implement systems and incentives to collect whatever we sell. That has a really big effect as well.

What I’m trying to say is that waste is actually a supply chain. No one thinks about it that way. It’s material, it’s useful material, and in this day and age where right now everything is so expensive . . . why are we wasting it?

We cannot keep doing waste management the way we’ve been doing it since the 1950s. Every single industry has changed, has had a disruption. Almost nothing we do right now is like we did in the 1950s except for waste management. Why has that not changed?

When you look at what is being recycled, even after all this time, it’s almost nothing, and most plastic is actually not recyclable. Is it really possible to get to numbers like 40 percent recycled content in all new plastics?

There’s one part of this process, which is the modeling aspect of it, the mass flows. The other is implementing the policies we’ve modeled, and that’s a whole different conversation. When I was working for the government of Singapore, they had a lot of trouble trying to implement some of the policies we’ve talked about. They’re not that easy, and it might be easier for some countries to implement than others.

One criticism I’ve seen of the treaty negotiations so far is that there is a lot of more emphasis on recycling and reuse and not as much on capping production. Based on the data, is it more important to cut production, and can we fix the plastic waste problem without capping? 

We could get to 20 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste without capping production, but it’s like trying to get all the water out of the house without turning off the tap.

A lot of the plastic waste in the food system is packaging. Is there a specific policy solution that shows the most promise in that sector according to your model?

Packaging reuse on its own does not have a very large impact on mismanaged plastic waste, but packaging reuse with a minimum recycled content mandate would result in a staggering decrease [from 121.5 to 56.5 million metric tons] in mismanaged plastic waste.

This is saying, “OK, how can we extend the life of one plastic packaging to not just one use?” It’s saying, “Maybe we can get eight to 10 uses out of a plastic packaging and then send it for recycling.” And if you can do that, look at the effect you have. It’s quite staggering. It’s more than half in reduction as opposed to only reuse.

For example, if a very well-known coffee company that sells coffee everywhere in America would implement reuse and collect back the coffee cups and then send those for recycling after eight to 10 uses, potentially even 20 depending on the robustness of the plastic, then you would have a much bigger reduction.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/05/28/restaurants-create-a-mound-of-plastic-waste-some-are-working-to-fix-that/ https://civileats.com/2024/05/28/restaurants-create-a-mound-of-plastic-waste-some-are-working-to-fix-that/#comments Tue, 28 May 2024 09:00:37 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56363 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. Customers don’t pay extra for the reusable take-out box. They simply need to download an app called Recirclable, and—to avoid paying a $15 fee—return the container within two weeks […]

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Customers don’t pay extra for the reusable take-out box. They simply need to download an app called Recirclable, and—to avoid paying a $15 fee—return the container within two weeks to one of 14 restaurants participating in Recirclable’s reuse program.

Johnny’s Luncheonette is among a small but growing number of restaurants taking steps to move away from single-use plastic take-out containers, which usually end up in the trash because they can’t be recycled. Worse yet, mismanaged plastic waste eventually enters the oceans, where it kills sea creatures that ingest it and breaks apart into toxic microplastics the size of a lentil or smaller.

Restaurants and food services use nearly 1 trillion pieces of disposable food service ware and packaging annually in the U.S., according to Upstream, a reuse advocacy organization.

Johnny’s Luncheonette began offering the reusable take-out containers earlier this year because its owner, Kay Masterson, was tired of the Sisyphean search for an environmentally friendly disposable take-out box. “Ideas like Recirclable are a much better option because it takes out the conversation of, ‘Well, which takeout container is less bad?’” she said. “Reuse is just smart. It’s smart resource-wise. It’s smart cost-wise.”

Masterson pays more per piece for the reusable packaging but said that she expects costs will drop below disposable packaging as more customers use the service. Thus far, only dozens of customers have selected the reusable option.

Many case studies show that while reusable containers cost more upfront, businesses start to save fairly quickly. What’s more, “It’s not just about saving money but about building resiliency so that you have shorter supply chains without so much global dependency,” said Elizabeth Balkan, director of Reloop America, at Reloop, a nonprofit operating in both Europe and the U.S.

Moving from single use to reuse is one of the biggest opportunities for reducing plastic pollution, according to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a reuse pioneer. Reuse services targeting food businesses are growing quickly in the U.S., especially for arenas and stadiums, colleges and K-12 schools, corporate offices, and other institutions.

Startups offering logistics and dishwashing are proliferating, as are nonprofit organizations providing strategic support, funding, and advocacy. But reuse is still far from the norm in the U.S. Communities need shared reuse infrastructure for the practice to pick up steam, according to Crystal Dreisbach, CEO of Upstream. Cohesive, city-scale systems could help shift consumer habits and increase the volume of materials being reused, which is essential for both economic and environmental impact. Enabling policies would hasten the transition.

“You can’t have consumers running all over town, dropping off things in [different] places. You’re going to need big infrastructure that will accommodate this massive systemic change away from disposable to reusable,” Dreisbach said.

Reuse on the Rise

Dishwashing and sanitizing systems are also emerging, since they’re key to any reuse system. Restaurants handle their own dishwashing in Recirclable’s system. Other reuse companies provide dishwashing, including via mobile units at large venues, or contract it out to large washing stations like Re:Dish, which operates in New York City and Philadelphia and is equipped with technologies for tracking and sorting packaging.

ReThink Disposable provides free reuse consulting to restaurants, institutions, and large venues in Minnesota, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England. The nonprofit also raises funding to buy reusable packaging and/or install dishwashers at restaurants and food delivery programs run by nonprofits, such as Truro Community Kitchen.

Reusable containers come in ceramic, glass, stainless steel, and plastic, depending on the venue, but, for takeout, “most restaurant owners prefer durable, No. 5 plastic [polypropylene type] because they store and stack easily,” are lightweight, and can be microwaved, said Amber Schmidt, New England zero-waste specialist at ReThink Disposable.

While “reusable plastic may be an imperfect solution, it is still a critically important step in the right direction,” toward an overall reduction in plastic packaging, Balkan said.

Volume Is Key

Recirclable’s volume is small. Its users are dedicated customers who follow it from restaurant to restaurant, Bell told Civil Eats. “We’re in the thousands—and we’d love to be in the tens and hundreds of thousands—but we have to grow the network” of restaurants.

“The biggest hurdle with Recirclable is just getting the word out there and changing habits,” said Masterson.

Recirclable’s small network of restaurants also limits its growth. Customers must live near a restaurant where they can return the container, or the system doesn’t work for them. The number of steps required is another barrier. Johnny’s Luncheonette Manager David Martinez said that when some interested people learn they have to download an app and put in their credit card, they decline.

“We recognize that can cause friction,” said Bell, who won an award from the EPA to develop a new system, launching this year, that will be accessed with one tap of a credit card.

Recirclable is not alone in having difficulty reaching volume—“the cornerstone” of reuse, Dreisbach said. “You cannot make the system work, you cannot make the economics work, until you have volume.”

Re:Dish’s washing station in Brooklyn, for example, can handle 75,000 reusables daily, but “we’re not anywhere near there right now,” CEO and founder Caroline Vanderlip told Civil Eats. Re:Dish is on track to handle 4.5 million containers this year, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the trillion pieces of packaging used in the food sector, she said.

Transformational Change

Private investment, government funding—including from the Inflation Reduction Act—and forward service contracts with large anchor clients such as arenas could support such infrastructure development. The nonprofit Perpetual, in fact, is now working to design and implement city-scale reusable food service ware solutions in collaboration with Ann Arbor, Michigan; Hilo, Hawaii; Galveston, Texas; and Savannah, Georgia.

Laws mandating reuse would hasten the transition, as they have in Europe, where reuse is more widespread, Balkan told Civil Eats. Oregon, California, and Maine have passed laws moving in this direction that will raise funds for reuse, she said.

But big consumer brands also need to lead the way on shaping consumer attitudes about reuse, said Driesbach. “They have a great deal of power to decide what that packaging is,” she said, adding that consumers are ready for reuse. “COVID really showed us what appeared in our trash cans at home because we were all getting takeout. Awareness about trash has increased hugely in the last five years.”

The post Restaurants Create a Mound of Plastic Waste. Some Are Working to Fix That. appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2024/05/28/restaurants-create-a-mound-of-plastic-waste-some-are-working-to-fix-that/feed/ 2 https://civileats.com/2024/05/20/getting-schooled-on-preserving-and-storing-food-with-civic-kitchen/ https://civileats.com/2024/05/20/getting-schooled-on-preserving-and-storing-food-with-civic-kitchen/#comments Mon, 20 May 2024 09:00:19 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56224 A version of this article originally appeared in the “Revitalizing Home Cooking” issue of The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. “We’re super concerned with the longevity of what we bring in and don’t want to waste it, so we have all kinds of […]

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]]> A version of this article originally appeared in the “Revitalizing Home Cooking” issue of The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox.

“We’re super concerned with the longevity of what we bring in and don’t want to waste it, so we have all kinds of storage techniques,” Nurse says.

For example, the cooking school, like all professional kitchens, uses the first in, first out (FIFO) system so that the oldest food in its refrigerators, freezer, and pantry are used first.

Below are more food storage and preserving tricks and hacks from Civic Kitchen and 18 Reasons, a San Francisco nonprofit that promotes home cooking to increase food security.

Produce. For many types of fruits and vegetables, the key is to wash, dry, and store them in the refrigerator or pantry. After Civic Kitchen receives a produce order, for example, they fill a sink or large container with cool water and add most types of fruits and vegetables (see note below on berries) to soak before scrubbing everything—Nurse loves using Japanese tawashi brushes—and laying them out to dry completely on a wire rack or towel without touching. “If we do that and store in our pantry or fridge, it lasts a really long time and anything you reach for is already clean,” Nurse says.

Tomatoes and potatoes can be washed and dried but shouldn’t be stored in the refrigerator. Potatoes can go into a brown paper bag once dry to shield them from light, which turns them green. Onions don’t need to be washed before storage or refrigeration. If your mushrooms are very dirty, wash them (quickly, to keep them from soaking up water) right before use.

Ethylene gas is released as produce ripens and can speed up ripening in nearby produce. Onions produce a lot of ethylene, so Kayla Whitehouse at 18 Reasons recommends storing them away from potatoes. Bananas also ripen quickly and produce ethylene, so store those away from apples.

Berries. For delicate berries such as strawberries or raspberries, Nurse spreads them out, unwashed, on a paper towel-lined sheet pan in a single layer, without touching. Then she layers another paper towel on top, followed by a layer of plastic wrap. Finally she stores them in the refrigerator to be washed right before using. For sturdier berries, such as blueberries and blackberries, she’ll follow the same procedure but washes and dries them first.

Herbs. Nurse advises against washing fresh herbs directly under hard running water, which can bruise the leaves. Instead, fill a large bowl or sink with cold water and float the herbs for a while. Lift them out and use a salad spinner to dry them as much as possible. For multiple kinds of herbs, nest a dry towel between the bunches in the salad spinner to keep from getting mixed up. Gather the stems in the same direction like a flower bouquet. Store the herbs upright in the refrigerator in a container with a little bit of water covering the stems. Or wrap the stems in a paper towel folded lengthwise, keeping the leaves loose, and store in an airtight container or Ziploc bag. “You throw a few bunches of herbs in there, squeeze out the air, zip it up, and it will last for at least two weeks,” Nurse says. This technique doesn’t work with basil, which should be washed right before using—and never refrigerated.

Ginger. Civic Kitchen stores half-used ginger in the freezer with the skin on. “You just grate it or use it straight from frozen, and it’s wonderful,” Nurse says. She notes that it’s easier to grate with the skin on and recommends choosing young ginger with fresh, fine skin and washing it before using.

Animal Protein. Most raw proteins last longer in the refrigerator than people think, Nurse says. She recommends buying and cooking fish within a couple days, and within three to four days for other types of protein. Throw out food if it smells off or looks discolored. Once cooked, most proteins will last three to five days.

Freshness. Nurse noted there can be a big difference in freshness and shelf life of what is available at a farmers’ market or farm stand vs. the grocery store. “I can say absolutely without a doubt that the produce and herbs from the farmers’ market typically last at least twice as long as what you get in the grocery store,” she said. Although some things may be cheaper at a grocery store, buying from a farmers’ market or farm stand also ensures that more of your dollars are going directly into farmers’ pockets.

Storage containers. Nurse recommends using clear, airtight containers that are stackable and nest well with each other, such as square- or rectangle-shaped containers rather than round ones. Although some people steer clear of plastic due to safety concerns, Nurse doesn’t have a problem with food-grade plastic containers like Cambro. She advises placing labels in the front of containers, rather than on top, so you can quickly see what needs to be used first.

Freezing. If you can’t cook your food or eat your leftovers in a timely manner, “your freezer is your friend,” Nurse says. Whitehouse recommends blanching vegetables before freezing them to retain texture and flavor; she also recommends buying frozen vegetables to save money on out-of-season produce. Overripe bananas can be frozen with or without their skin and used in smoothies or banana bread.

If using Ziploc bags to store food in the freezer, Nurse says it’s important to squeeze out as much air as possible because many freezers are designed to cycle through freeze and thaw periods; as they cycle up and down in temperature, food will refreeze, which can lead to freezer burn if the food is exposed to air.

Preserving. Extra onions and other vegetables can be pickled with a quick brine, which will extend their life for a month and provide fun toppings for tacos and sandwiches. Onions can also be caramelized, which will keep for a week or be frozen. Lemons preserved in salt and sugar can add a kick to salad dressings, sauces, cocktails, and marinades. For herbs about to turn, Nurse recommends making a simple green sauce that can be added to meat, sandwiches, pasta, or dressing, or can be frozen for later use.

Avoid the danger zone. Nurse advises home cooks to beware of the danger zone, the 40° F to 140°F range in which bacteria can quickly grow. The saying goes, “Keep hot food hot, and cold food cold.” Food safety experts recommend discarding perishable food that has been held in this temperature range cumulatively for more than four hours.

Cooking Tips From the Civil Eats Team

Introduction by Lisa Held

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the Civil Eats’ team are enthusiastic home cooks. Some of us have been to culinary school, some have picked up favorite recipes from their parents, and others have found inspiration in the wide world of recipes and how-to videos now available online. Here, the team shares some of the best tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way. We’d love to hear your tips as well—send us an email!

When it comes to home cooking, we all pick up knowledge in different ways.

Part of my story involves marrying an award-winning chef. (I know, what a brag.) In almost all ways, it’s a dream. He cooks for me constantly, and for that, I am unceasingly grateful.

But for an enthusiastic home cook, it can also be complicated. I love to cook and always thought I was pretty good at it. But when we first got together, my “skills” suddenly seemed ridiculous. I was filled with anxiety chopping vegetables in his presence and terrified any time he took a bite of a dish I’d made. (To be clear, he is only ever supportive and uncritical; it’s just about my internal desire to measure up in all ways at all times.)

Over time, that fear was whittled away by love and partnership. And along the way, I got better at cooking. The best part is that the pure joy he gets from making and sharing something delicious rubbed off on me. While some people dread the question, his eyes light up when he asks (sometimes literally at 10 a.m.), “What do you want to have for dinner tonight?” But I also use more salt and pepper than I ever did before and know how to make many more simple condiments. (Try this: diced white onion, cilantro, lime juice.)

“One extra step.” If time is the only variable that matters, you can live without this. Especially because yes, there will be more dishes. But one thing I noticed is that chefs always add an extra step that happens before the main “cooking” event. I never would have bothered with it in the past, but I have realized it can really improve the outcome. For example, boiling hard vegetables like potatoes or broccoli that are going to end up sautéed, roasted, or fried. Or sweating eggplant: Cover slices or dices with plenty of salt, let it sit for 20 minutes, put it in a towel, and squeeze out the water. —Lisa Held

A final touch. I used to laugh at the idea of carefully plating or garnishing a weeknight dinner for two, but there is something so lovely about someone putting a plate in front of you that looks like it was made with care. The most simple bowl of rice and beans comes to life with a little cilantro garnish on top. —Lisa Held

Garlic oil at the ready. For years I have sautéed garlic in olive oil before using it in pesto or other sauces that don’t get cooked; it mellows out the flavor and significantly reduces my garlic-breath woes. For the last six months or so, I have been doing that “one extra step” that Lisa mentions and sautéing more garlic and oil than I immediately need, and keeping the extra in a jar on my counter. Being able to quickly add garlic oil to any dish makes it a little more magical, and it makes pesto that much quicker to whip up. —Matt Wheeland

Storage and presentation. Anything that’s getting stored in the fridge gets masking tape with an ID and a date. It takes two seconds, and I think it really does help you make sense of what’s in your fridge, which helps you come up with dinner plans more quickly and avoid food waste. —Lisa Held

Consult internet experts. When I want to figure out how to make something come out great, I go to YouTube to find tricks. I recently learned how to make fluffy omelets and how to pop the best popcorn every time! —Kalisha Bass

4 words to cook by. Samin Nosrat’s principle of “Salt Fat Acid Heat” is really helpful for figuring out how to cook and season to taste. It’s the idea that good-tasting food strikes a balance between salty, fatty, and acidic elements, while also considering how it is cooked (heat). So if the food doesn’t quite taste right, it’s likely one of those factors needs adjusting. —Grey Moran

Look to simple, veggie-forward recipes for inspiration. We got into a rut with menu ideas to prepare for two kids and with limited time. We found ourselves making pasta, tacos, or a plate of rice and roasted vegetables over and over, ad infinitum. While we’re not ones for prescriptive diets, we’ve recently found inspiration with Mediterranean diet-inspired recipes, which prioritize vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and heart-healthy fats. The new ideas have spiced up our rotation: spinach and feta frittata! Lemony roasted shrimp and asparagus! Tuna melts! The variety has been refreshing, and the kids have been happy. We look for recipes that are simple and require as few ingredients and steps as possible. —Christina Cooke

Simple, high-quality ingredients. The one tip I share the most is really the simplest: Buy the best ingredients you can afford and let them shine. Because I don’t eat meat, I often spend more on fresh vegetables at the farmers’ market as well as high-quality olive oil—and I use a lot of it. People often seem amazed how really good olive oil can transform vegetables, not only in cooking and roasting, but also as a finishing touch and in salad dressing. Caramelized baby cauliflower, fennel, spring onions, and carrots, for example, can be transformed into a simple delicacy with a peppery olive oil and salt. —Naomi Starkman

Cook with, and for, friends. The Civil Eats team is tired of me talking about my soup swap, but it’s one of my favorite cooking improvements in the last few years. Throughout the winter, a neighbor friend and I exchange a quart of soup every week. I’ll make a slightly larger pot of soup—which takes almost no extra effort—and I get an extra meal by swapping with my neighbor. It’s like two meals for one! Plus, I get to try a bunch of recipes that I never would’ve discovered on my own. —Matt Wheeland

For kids, find recipes that can be deconstructed. With two kids, ages 3 and 5, who each have particular tastes, we look for recipes that sound tasty to my husband and me—but can be served in deconstructed form as well. That way, we can enjoy the whole dish as intended, and they can enjoy the individual components they find most appealing. We recently prepared a variation of this farro, chickpea, spring veggie, and feta salad, for example. While we ate the marinated salad all mixed together, the kids enjoyed farro, roasted chickpeas, and slices of avocado, and could avoid the radishes and lettuce, which they were less likely to eat. —Christina Cooke

Finishing touches. Ice cube trays are great for freezing small portions of extra sauce; the cubes can be stored in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. For example, you can pull out a few cubes of stock, pesto, or chile sauce for a quick addition to a dish. We also typically have fresh herbs, citrus, and good olive oil and butter on hand for finishing a dish. —Tilde Herrera

Preserving family memories. The act of passing on a family recipe can often be forgotten or put off for years. Sometimes it’s best to be the initiator and ask to learn how to make your mom’s famous chimichurri or arroz con pollo. Not only will seeking guidance on how to prepare beloved dishes allow another generation to experience the love of cooking that spans decades, but it will also honor the cooks themselves. Take this as a sign to ask that family member about their iconic dish and then be sure to pass down the knowledge in your own time. —Marisa Martinez

All interviews in this issue have been edited for length and clarity

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Cookbook author Nik Sharma is no stranger to the challenges of recipe and cooking fatigue: His latest cookbook, Veg-Table, is focused on putting produce at the center of the menu, which can require more prep and clean-up, two of the more time-consuming aspects of cooking.

Recognizing that, we spoke to Sharma recently about his approach to keeping cooking interesting, engaging, and joyful. Here are some of his favorite tips.

Seek out entertainment while you’re cooking.

There are non-cooking things you can do during cooking. When I cook, for example, I’m either listening to my favorite soundtrack, or I’m watching a show—something on design, or something silly like the “Real Housewives.” But it has to be something unrelated to what I’m doing at the moment, so I don’t get fatigued and bored and tired and fed up.

Add meaning with non-food elements.

One of the things recipe writers do a lot is to get inspiration from other people or countries. So when you travel or go to a restaurant, try to remember things that you enjoyed. I learned this from an author Diana Henry, who is known for romanticizing meals beautifully. She loves to collect tablecloths and cute little wine glasses, and they’re all mismatched, but there’s a story behind everything and it brings back memories during a meal. It doesn’t have to be always the dish that creates the memory for you.

Cook the same foods different ways.

Although there’s a lot to be said about the joys of cooking seasonally, there are some downsides too. I did a CSA [community-supported agriculture] when I lived in D.C., and they would send us lettuce all the time. I once found a recipe for a French lettuce soup just to try something new, and it was the most disgusting thing. Even in California, you can get the same things all the time in season. It does get boring.

This is where there are easier fixes: Suppose you’re making potatoes two times a week. Maybe you change the method of cooking—one day you roast them, the other time you boil them. Or maybe you use the same technique, but then you can switch the spice plan. Spices are the easiest way to revamp a meal, to make something familiar more exciting—you roast potatoes with salt and pepper one time, then in harissa the next time, and maybe the third time use garam masala.

There’s no shame in shortcuts.

I tell people, if they want to make it easier, if the budget allows, go and buy pre-prepared, pre-cut ingredients, it’s OK. It’s a little more expensive. But if you can, do it if it makes your life easier. There’s no shame in taking shortcuts.

One of the pressures, especially in countries where we’re privileged enough to get access to ingredients all the time, is that there is a shame around buying canned foods and frozen foods. There are definitely good quality brands that are already prepared, so you don’t have to soak your beans and stuff like that.

Frozen foods can actually be nutritionally better than fresh foods because the vitamin content often lasts longer. If you buy a whole vegetable, depending on the time it takes to get from the farm to the market, the nutritional quality keeps decreasing as soon as it’s pulled off from the plant. With frozen vegetables and fruit, it’s flash-packed, so the nutrients don’t degrade as fast.

Simplify your prep.

If you’re actually going to sit and cut everything, it’s OK to prep the night before. If you want to spend time on a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday prepping for the week, it’s totally fine to prep and freeze. And if you have a food processor, those chop up pretty nicely—it’s easy to use tools like those.

I know professional chefs and recipe developers always encourage people to do the mise en place, like, get all your ingredients ready in separate bowls. And people don’t like to do this because then they have to wash more dishes—and the mental notion of washing a lot of dishes is just off-putting. Just have the ingredients in front of you at the table in the kitchen and work with them.

It’s not about looks.

Instagram, Pinterest, and all these things are all responsible for this desire for everything to look perfect—and of course I’m partly responsible for it too, because I always have to take a good photograph or video to sell the product.

But you also have to keep it real. For me it’s a professional challenge. So I just tell people directly, don’t be ashamed of how it looks. Because first of all, no one’s coming to your house to judge you. As long as it tastes good, it’s fine.

Kosher salt is silly.

Another thing home cooks hear all the time is, “You have to use kosher salt—Morton or Diamond.” It’s nonsense, because that’s not going to make them a better cook. There’s nothing magical about it. And it’s infuriating to me because, first of all, the price of those salts are actually quite high compared to just regular sea salt.

Some chefs will say, “Oh, I can grab kosher salt better.” You can also grab fine sea salt better, unless your fingers are made of, like, stainless steel, right? And some chefs will say, ‘It dissolves really fast.’ But I did a time experiment side by side and there was no difference. Telling people to use something so specific, when it’s not going to make them a good or bad cook—it’s silly.

Don’t go overboard so you can actually enjoy the meal.

We do a lot of this to ourselves—we’re trying to replicate what’s online or what’s in a restaurant, and you don’t need that at home. You can just have a lovely meal, entertain your guests properly. When you’re entertaining or feeding your family, don’t go overboard, because at the end of the day, you actually want to enjoy the meal and spend time with them.

Accept help, including from kids.

If you can, get help from family members or friends. Maybe not even meal prep, but putting things away, cleaning up, setting the table—take it, take it. You don’t have to do it all yourself, especially if you have kids. One of the things that I enjoyed as a child was always being asked to be part of what I call transformational steps in cooking.

My grandmother would do this thing whenever she was making sweets for Christmas. In India, it’s a huge process—there’s a month-long thing for Christmas and Easter where the Christian community does sweets. My family would start a month ahead of time. And I would be involved always at the end stage where we were shaping sweets; as a child that was always fun. Or when my grandmother was making something savory, again, that involves assembling.

In Veg-Table, there’s a recipe for her cabbage rolls; that’s a dish that I learned from her because it was so much fun to do, stuffing things and rolling leaves. And I call those transformational recipes because, as a child, you start to get fascinated by your ingredients. They’re changing in front of you. You’re actually involved at the end and, as a child, you can say, “I made that.”

Not everything needs to be made at home.

Just this morning I saw a video on how to make mayonnaise at home. Why would you make it at home when you can buy it? You make this giant batch and then you have to eat all that mayo within a certain time period. Condiments—and spices especially—are the easiest way to make a meal more interesting. Just buy them from the store; it’ll probably actually taste better.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post Nik Sharma Offers His Top Tips for Home Cooks to Fight Recipe Fatigue appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2024/05/13/nik-sharma-offers-his-top-tips-for-home-cooks-to-fight-recipe-fatigue/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/ https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:52:38 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56077 Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture. It helps increase yields and the nutrient content of crops, reduce synthetic fertilizer use, and improve soil health and water retention, among other benefits. But he’s concerned that a new proposal to rewrite U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) compost rules could […]

The post Should Bioplastics Be Allowed in Organic Compost? appeared first on Civil Eats.

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Steve Ela is an organic fruit grower in western Colorado who relies on compost to nourish his heirloom tomato crop each year. He plants nitrogen-rich legumes and other perennial cover crops amongst his pear, apple, plum, peach, and cherry trees, but he buys a commercial compost product to keep his 100-acre, fourth-generation family farm thriving.

Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture. It helps increase yields and the nutrient content of crops, reduce synthetic fertilizer use, and improve soil health and water retention, among other benefits. But he’s concerned that a new proposal to rewrite U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) compost rules could dramatically change the meaning of organic compost for farmers.

The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) currently requires compost to be derived from plant and animal materials, such as manure, food scraps, leaves, and straw. Newspapers or other recycled paper without colored inks are the only synthetic feedstocks allowed.

The proposal, filed by the nonprofit certification and advocacy organization Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) in November, asks the USDA to allow synthetic, biodegradable food packaging and service ware as a feedstock for certified organic compost produced at commercial and municipal compost facilities.

The USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which guides the agency on standard setting, will decide at its biannual meeting on April 30 and May 1 whether to grant the change. BPI’s request is sparking yet another heated debate in a long, contentious history about what can and should qualify as organic under USDA’s program.

“The whole purpose of organics was to limit the number of synthetics used in agriculture,” Ela, a former NOSB chair who works part-time for the National Organic Coalition, told Civil Eats. “The only synthetics that are allowed to go through get pretty close scrutiny for environmental and human health and whether they’re actually needed.” He said that these materials don’t meet the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) standards, “as noble as the idea [of compostable packaging] is.”

Biodegradable food packaging and service ware—including cups, bowls, bottles, cutlery, and bags—is replacing traditional single-use plastics as companies seek to reduce their plastics use as well as the climate impacts of plastics derived from fossil fuels. By diverting food scraps and packaging to a composter and allowing it to degrade into a product that nourishes soil, experts say compostable food packaging also helps cut plastic pollution and methane gas emissions from landfills.

“We feel that there’s a lot of risks and not a lot of gain for us.”

The trouble is that compostable products are not necessarily more benign than the traditional plastics they are replacing: They can be made from plants such as corn, sugarcane or bamboo, and also from petroleum products. Though they are designed to fully break down under controlled conditions at an industrial composter, compostable products are nevertheless made with the same processes as conventional plastics, which means they contain many chemical fillers, additives, and dyes. Additionally, they can leave microplastics behind when they decompose.

Because not enough is known about how long biodegradable microplastics may linger in the ground and harm soil life, pollute waterways, or be taken up by plants, many organic farmers and commercial composters are calling for further scientific review or want to see NOSB reject the petition.

“We feel that there’s a lot of risks and not a lot of gain for us,” to accept compost derived in part from biodegradable packaging materials, Ela told Civil Eats.

In written comments to NOSB penned on behalf of the National Organics Coalition, Ela was more pointed. “Organic lands are not a dumping ground to get rid of problematic wastes,” he wrote. “The petition to include these materials is because manufacturers are looking for a way to easily dispose of these products . . . The reality is that the biggest issue is our societal embracement of single-use packaging.”

BPI’s Petition Motivated by California Law

Landfills are the third-largest producer of methane gas in the U.S., and as states—from California to Massachusetts—set ambitious climate goals to divert food waste from landfills, commercial composters are being pressed to accept more than just food scraps.

BPI submitted the petition to the USDA on behalf of its members, who include composters, municipalities, and compostable product manufacturers, such as top bioplastics producers BASF, Eastman, Corbion, and NatureWorks.

The petition frames the move as advancing “climate-smart” agriculture by helping states, specifically California and Washington, achieve food-waste diversion goals. BPI states that the NOP’s current compost rules are an obstacle to states achieving their goals. “Composters are not able to market finished compost as an input to organic agriculture if they accept compostable packaging as a feedstock . . .”states the petition, adding that it’s a “major barrier for some composters, leading to decisions not to accept compostable packaging.”

In California, commercial composters sell 75 percent of their product to agriculture, and a significant portion goes to farmers who want organic compost even if they farm conventionally, said Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Coalition, a lobbying organization that represents roughly half of the commercial composters in the state. Edgar has seen that California farmers “believe [organic compost] is a higher quality; that’s what they want, and in some cases, they’re contractually obligated with whoever their buyers are.”

But BPI is especially motivated by a provision in California law that would sunset the sale of compostable packaging not allowed by NOP on January 1, 2026. Such a ban would crimp the nascent compostable packaging market’s ability to grow. Compostable bioplastics are now a more expensive, niche product that comprise less than one percent of the $700 billion plastics market.  (The compostable market value is roughly $5 billion.)

Critics say BPI’s petition is designed to expand markets opportunities for its manufacturer members, without addressing the concerns of organic farmers.

“Without updating NOP’s compost rules, compostable packaging will be taken off the table by 2026, leaving food businesses without many sustainable packaging options.”

“The petition makes no argument that seems relevant to organic agriculture. It’s not even scientific. It’s a complaint,” Tom Gilbert, the owner of Black Dirt Farm, a small Vermont composter that takes plant-based fibers like egg cartons and coffee filters, but not compostable bioplastics, told Civil Eats.

Rhodes Yepsen, executive director at BPI, doesn’t deny that California’s deadline is driving BPI’s petition, but he says it’s about more than benefitting manufacturers.

“The organic industry has been an early adopter of compostable packaging, investing in research and development to launch these new materials, and proudly promoting the role it plays in their sustainability goals,” he said, naming food retailers PCC Community Markets and Oryana Coop, which are both members of NOC, and manufacturers Humble Chips and Sun and Swell. “Without updating NOP’s compost rules, the option of compostable packaging will be taken off the table by 2026 in California, leaving organic and conventional food businesses alike without many sustainable packaging options.”

Critics say further that BPI is seeking a significant change to organic compost rules without asking for technical review, which is “highly unusual,” according to Harriet Behar, a Wisconsin organic farmer and a former NOSB board chair. Petitioners typically ask for review by an outside scientific organization to determine whether their substance meets the criteria of the Organic Food Production Act, Behar told Civil Eats. But in this case, “[NOSB] is planning a vote without a technical review,” she said. “They’re getting a lot of pressure that this has to be answered quickly.”

Microplastics and PFAS Concerns

Both Behar and Ela said the industry standards for compostable materials, set by ASTM International, are insufficient and inherently allow for residual debris. ASTM requires products to fully decompose within 12 weeks under controlled conditions at a commercial compost facility. A material is considered fully decomposed if less than 10 percent of it is left after passing it through a two-millimeter sieve.

By ASTM standards, then, a material is considered compostable if any remaining material is not easily visible to the naked eye.

Field studies, such as a recent investigation by the Composting Consortium, show that by this measure, compostable products largely break down at commercial facilities. Microplastics could remain, however, and break down “very slowly, or not at all, outside of controlled conditions, such as in a farm field,” Ela wrote in his comments to the NOP.

Studies to date show mixed results. One study coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany found that biodegradable bags contained large amounts of microplastics less than one millimeter in size that could remain in soil for a long time, and cautioned against widespread use of the bags without further research. Another study from Bayreuth University found that fertilizer from compost facilities contained large quantities of biodegradable plastics.

A meta-review of research by the University of Vermont found widespread microplastic contamination in compost materials though traditional plastic particles were more predominant than biodegradable plastic particles. “We have not typically observed compostable plastic particles in compost samples,” said Eric Roy, an associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of Vermont, who co-authored the meta-review and will soon be publishing original research on the topic.

Spanish researchers also found no debris less than five millimeters in size from biodegradable plastics in compost collected from different facilities, and they concluded that compostable materials were safe if composted correctly.

Such negative findings lead Yepsen to dismiss microplastic concerns. “We need to be realistic that microplastics in compost are a result of contamination from non-compostable plastic, and composting facilities receive contamination even if they don’t accept compostable packaging,” he told Civil Eats.

Roy, however, said that the jury is still out. Some studies do find biodegradable microplastics and more research is needed to understand how long the different types may linger in the environment and the potential harm they could cause to soil life.

“Theoretically, they will persist in the environment for a shorter amount of time than traditional plastics will,” he said, but there’s “some evidence that these materials are not necessarily entirely benign in the soil environment.” Biodegradable microplastics can affect soil stability and plant growth, and potentially release chemical additives, such as PFAS.

“Potentially, you could see alteration in the soil structure, which could alter water retention, or the suitability of the soil for key invertebrates like earthworms,” said, Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology and director of Plymouth University’s Marine Institute, who is lead researcher on a four-year investigation into the fate of biodegradable plastics in the environment.

BPI and other certifiers require products to pass additional tests for soil ecotoxicity as well as be PFAS-free. While that’s a step in the right direction, the soil ecotoxicity test “doesn’t capture everything that might be happening within the soil environment, such as effects on microbial communities or effects that take longer to manifest,” said Roy.

PFAS in food packaging has long concerned both composters and farmers: One study found that compost containing biodegradable food packaging contained PFAS levels up to 20 times higher than compost made from manure or from separated food waste mixed with grass clippings and livestock bedding.

“There is a long history of industry, food processing and municipalities using agricultural land as a place to get rid of their wastes.”

State laws banning PFAS from food contact materials and the Food and Drug Administration’s recent announcement that manufacturers will no longer use PFAS on fiber-based food packaging may begin to reduce contamination. Nevertheless, a certain level of unintentionally added PFAS is unavoidable, experts say, and the FDA has not eliminated PFAS on all food contact materials that may end up at a compost facility.

PFAS pollution on farm fields from sewage sludge is exactly why NOP should not allow compostable packaging as a compost feedstock, Ela said. “There is a long history of industry, food processing and municipalities using agricultural land as a place to get rid of their wastes,” he said, citing cheese making whey and recycled wallboard as well as sewage sludge. But “organic farms have been protected historically.”

Composters Are Wary

Commercial composters are sympathetic to the environmental goals associated with compostable packaging, but think the BPI petition goes too far. “The blanket acceptance for any compostable materials that meet ASTM standards goes beyond what most composters are comfortable with,” Edgar said. Composters’ number one challenge is plastics contamination and discerning truly compostable from “look-alike” non-compostable materials, he added. Truth in labeling laws, like those passed in California, Washington, and Colorado will help, but it’s going to take time, he said.

“If [fossil fuel-based plastics] can be replaced with bioplastics that have a reasonably sustainable footprint, that would be the ideal world, but we’re so far away from that,” Edgar said. Composters “deal every day with the reality of the material that’s coming in their gates and at this point in time, compostable plastics are just another single-use plastic that is clogging up the system and creating contamination.”

The U.S. Composting Council, a national trade, certification and advocacy group whose members include composters, government officials, researchers and compostable product manufacturers, declined to take a position in its written comments to NOSB on whether compostable packaging should be allowed in the NOP program, although it did support other changes to update the definition of compost.

“I think that this whole petition is an act of defensiveness,” Tom Gilbert, the owner of Black Dirt Farm, told Civil Eats.

Further Erosion of USDA Organic Standards

Regardless of NOSB’s decision, it’s unlikely that many organic farmers will accept compost from facilities that take in packaging. “It’s not like organic growers are saying, ‘Hey, we want compostable synthetics in our compost.’ In fact, we’re hearing the opposite,” said Ela.

“Organic consumers don’t want PFAS or other chemicals in their food, and they expect that the organic farmer will be stewarding the organic lands,” agreed Behar.

While Roy understands that position, he said “there’s multiple reasonable perspectives” on the petition. “If we’re going to move toward a circular economy and recycle nutrients, it’s going to inevitably bring up some questions about how stringent should we be with some of these certifications.”

For Black Dirt Farm’s Gilbert, the willingness on the part of NOSB to advance the petition is why people feel increasingly disconnected from the organic standards. “Just look at what’s happened in poultry, allowing porches and other ridiculous exceptions that allow industrial operators to claim organic. The local foods and local economy movement is an antidote to that,” he added.

Ela agreed. “We’re trying to protect organic integrity and the value of the seal. The more we dilute that, the more we see people saying that it’s not worth it. That is the bottom line.”

The post Should Bioplastics Be Allowed in Organic Compost? appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/feed/ 3 https://civileats.com/2023/12/12/global-leaders-bypass-real-agriculture-reform-again-at-cop28-climate-summit/ Tue, 12 Dec 2023 18:24:46 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=54664 Update: Twelve hours after we published this article, global leaders at COP28 reached an agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels that did not include the food system. “Ignoring the one-third of greenhouse gas emissions from food systems is a dangerous oversight,” said Emile Frison, IPES-Food panel expert, in a statement. “We cannot afford another […]

The post Global Leaders Bypass Real Agriculture Reform Again at COP28 Climate Summit appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> Update: Twelve hours after we published this article, global leaders at COP28 reached an agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels that did not include the food system. “Ignoring the one-third of greenhouse gas emissions from food systems is a dangerous oversight,” said Emile Frison, IPES-Food panel expert, in a statement. “We cannot afford another lost year for food and climate action.”

 

The global food system, a major driver of the climate crisis, was given a prominent place on the stage at the 2023 United Nations Climate Conference, which is set to conclude today, with negotiations continuing into overtime. Known as COP28, the event brought over 90,000 registered delegates to Dubai as world leaders there have worked to shape the global response to the escalating climate crisis.

On the first day of the gathering, delegates from 152 countries signed a global declaration for food systems transformation. And for the first time in its history, the conference devoted an entire day to food, agriculture, and water.

In opening remarks that day, Susan Gardner, director of the U.N.’s ecosystems division, highlighted the dangerous cycle of unsustainable agriculture. “Let’s be clear: we know our current food systems are broken,” she said. “Agriculture alone is responsible for 60 percent of biodiversity loss. It generates about a third of greenhouse gas emissions globally.”

However, food and agriculture won’t likely get much airtime in the much-debated Global Stocktake, the key document resulting from the conference’s negotiations. The stocktake represents an important juncture in international climate negotiations, and has been described by the U.N. as “taking an inventory” of global climate progress. And despite much discussion of food systems, the draft agreement only makes a passing reference to food.

Much of the attention over the last two days has gone to the removal of language about a fossil fuel phaseout in the draft, but questions also remain about why food systems were largely left out of the agreement. And it’s clear that the negotiations didn’t occur in a vacuum. Three hundred and forty agribusiness lobbyists—a record number—attended the conference, and most where from the meat and dairy industry, according to an analysis by The Guardian and DeSmog.

While most lobbyists came as observers, over 100 gained access to the negotiations designated as “country delegates.” Delegates representing the industry-funded Global Meat Alliance attended with the explicit goal of positioning meat as beneficial to the environment.

Representatives from Bayer and CropLife America, the pesticide trade group, were also present as sponsors of the Sustainable Agriculture of the Americans pavilion.

As negotiations drew to a close, some advocates did push to include more language about food systems in the Global Stocktake. On December 8, over 120 civil society organizations, and even some corporations, sent a letter expressing “significant concern over the omission of agriculture and food system” from the draft. “The current draft is a far cry from what is needed,” reads the letter, which points out that the parties repeatedly addressed the food system throughout the process leading up to the agreement’s draft.

The U.N. also released a roadmap this weekend that lays out how to transform the food sector to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The document sets new benchmarks, including cutting methane emissions by 25 percent by 2030.

It also lays out pathways for livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and crops and advises that “initiatives target regenerative farm practices, sustainable land management, freshwater management, advanced irrigation technologies, remote sensing utilization, inclusive governance, and coherent policies to protect land rights and improve water-pricing policies towards sustainable resource use.”

But those messages do not carry the authority of the Gobal Stocktake, which is a more formal pathway for achieving the binding targets of the Paris Agreement.

Bibong Widyarti, Council Member Inofo of Indonesia speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (CC-licensed photo by Christophe Viseux, COP28)

“Never before have we seen food systems on the climate agenda like at this COP. It is an unprecedented achievement,” said Gonzalo Muñoz, the U.N. Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, in a speech on the food system day. “However, there is still a huge gap in translating these intentions into action.”

Aiming to narrow this gap, on December 10th, Muñoz led the development of a manifesto calling for the urgent need to transform food systems, especially by supporting and directly financing the knowledge of small producers and Indigenous people. The manifesto also calls for an agreed upon set of global targets. It has since been signed by over 200 non-state actors— rom farmers and fishers to businesses, cities, civil society, consumers and all those engaged in food systems—who are hoping that governments will support those who have long tended to the earth.

In total, COP28 has resulted in pledges of more than $7.8 billion in funding for climate action in the food sector, according to the conference’s organizers. Yet it’s unclear how much of this funding will reach small-scale producers or Indigenous people.

“We are not sure if we will be able to directly access this climate finance that has been announced,” said Estrella Penunia, the secretary general of the Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA), in an interview with Civil Eats. “We [have] a lot of solutions to adapt to climate change with mitigation potentials, and we need support.”

For instance, Penunia pointed to how in her home country of the Philippines, farmers grow rice with ducks who fertilize the soil, an integrated system promoted by the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Yet the ingenuity and knowledge of small farmers—including AFA’s 13 million-plus farmers, fishers, and Indigenous peoples—is often overlooked.

While growing more than a third of the world’s food, small producers receive just 0.3 percent of international climate financing, according to AFA’s analysis released prior to COP28.

Penunia also expressed skepticism about the World Bank’s announcement last week that it funds carbon markets in 15 countries to preserve forests. She cautioned about the potential for carbon markets to be an “excuse to not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” by cutting fossil fuels. Beyond that, she wants Indigenous people and small farmers to have as much agency as possible within the carbon markets on their land.

“We want to innovate. We don’t want to be passive recipients of technology, including how to count carbon,” Penunia told Civil Eats. “We want to have direct control and ownership over the technologies we are implementing.”

Monica Ndoen, an Indigenous leader from Rote, Indonesia, also expressed the need for directly funding Indigenous peoples to steward biodiversity. “If you really want to support Indigenous peoples and responsible sourcing initiatives on the ground, it has to be direct climate finance, not going through institutions or NGOs,” she told Civil Eats.

She points to the fact that only 7 percent of the $1.7 billion pledged at COP26 in 2021 to Indigenous peoples and local communities actually made it to the intended recipients.

Meanwhile, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who attended COP28 last week, isn’t too troubled that agriculture will be left out of the UN’s final agreement, as he seems to believe that U.S. farmers are already doing enough. “We flipped the script for American agriculture” he said on a recent call with reporters, referring to the agency’s Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities and other voluntary programs that have yet to show clear results when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more:
Will a Food and Ag Focus at COP28 Distract From the Fossil Fuel Economy?
Op-ed: Big Ag Touts Its Climate Strengths, While Awash in Fossil Fuels

The 2023 Farm Bill extended: The U.S. faces food security and agriculture funding challenges as the next farm bill, the massive, trillion-dollar legislative package that shapes the entire food system—from nutritional benefits to crop insurance—remains in limbo. The 2018 Farm Bill expired in September, and was extended for another year. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) points to where the next farm bill could be cut: the Federal Crop Insurance Program. In 2022, the USDA subsidized 62 percent of farmers’ insurance premiums, totaling $12 billion. The report suggests reducing the subsidies for high-income farmers, while lowering payments to the private insurance companies which offer the federal program, to save millions.

“This report highlights the simple fact that by establishing modest payment limits, we can save money while helping small farmers and ranchers who are short-changed or left out of the crop insurance program altogether,” Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), said in a statement to Civil Eats.

Meanwhile federal funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition is only allocated through until January 19. WIC’s administrators fear that they may have to turn away mothers and children. Nearly 13 percent of U.S. households were food insecure in 2022, according to the USDA.

Read more:
The Farm Bill Really Matters. We Explain Why.
Former Snap Recipients Call for Expanded Benefits in the Next Farm Bill
How Crop Insurance Prevents Some Farmers from Adapting to Climate Change

Food Loss and Waste: Earlier this month, the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a joint draft of a national strategy aimed at reducing food loss and waste, while increasing organics recycling. The draft was announced at COP28 as part of the Biden administration’s target of halving food waste by 2030, a goal that reflects the Paris Agreement’s commitments. Yet there is still a long way to go; recent EPA research shows methane emissions are increasing from landfilled food waste. The U.N.’s food systems roadmap also lays out strong recommendations for cutting methane emissions quickly.

Read more:
Supermarket Food Waste is a Big Problem. Are Strategic Price Cuts the Solution?
These Manure Digesters Incorporate Food Scraps. Does That Make Them better?

The post Global Leaders Bypass Real Agriculture Reform Again at COP28 Climate Summit appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2023/10/23/mackinac-islands-decades-old-composting-system-can-serve-as-a-model-for-newer-efforts/ Mon, 23 Oct 2023 08:00:14 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=53639 This iconic Great Lakes vacation spot has been running a composting program since the 1990s. Tourists often stop to gawk at the novelty of a horse-drawn garbage cart—and many look no further than that. But a closer look reveals far more than a gimmick: Mackinac’s system of small-town composting has been in place for decades […]

The post This Car-Free Michigan Island Is Leading on Composting appeared first on Civil Eats.

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On a hot July day on Michigan’s vehicle-free Mackinac Island, people swarm the downtown streets on foot and bikes and in horse-drawn carriages. Sitting high atop a cart emblazoned with the mission of “Keeping Mackinac Beautiful,” a city sanitation worker maneuvers a two-horse team through the fray, stopping periodically to collect trash and compost.

This iconic Great Lakes vacation spot has been running a composting program since the 1990s. Tourists often stop to gawk at the novelty of a horse-drawn garbage cart—and many look no further than that. But a closer look reveals far more than a gimmick: Mackinac’s system of small-town composting has been in place for decades and now thrives despite its limitations.

A worker drives the slop wagon after delivering waste to the solid waste facility. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

More and more communities across the U.S. are adopting composting each year. New York City recently made national headlines with its curbside composting program, and California has pushed forward mandatory composting regulations that target emissions. As these kinds of initiatives spread, this small town provides an example of what a successful, decades-old composting program can look like.

The island is uniquely situated off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the northernmost tip of Lake Huron. In the winter, the surrounding waters can freeze, leaving roughly 400 year-round residents almost entirely cut off from the mainland.

The island’s community is defined by its quiet character and dedication to historical legacy—non-essential motor vehicles have been banned since 1898. In the summer, the population swells with thousands of seasonal employees, summer residents, and tourists. And with the increase in population comes a swell of waste.

Because of the island’s isolation and lack of motor vehicles, moving waste to the mainland is logistically and financially taxing, explained Allen Burt, director of the Mackinac Department of Public Works (DPW). As such, any effort to reduce that waste is critical.

Long-time summer resident Tom Lewand said composting has become second nature for this family. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

Long-time summer resident Tom Lewand has become quite accustomed to the composting system. “It becomes second nature up here,” he said. “Even our youngest grandkids learn the system at a very young age, and know what goes in the green bag and what goes in the black bag.”

At the island’s solid waste facility—hidden away in the hills and surrounded by forestland—piles of food scraps, manure, and green waste slowly turn to soil.

The Composting Landscape

Composting programs are becoming more common, but they are still primarily concentrated in urban areas that have the infrastructure to support the process, according to Linda Norris-Waldt, deputy director of the U.S. Composting Council.

In rural areas, “It is not always cost feasible to go from house to house to collect compost because they are miles away,” she explained. Backyard and farm composting by individuals can be more common in these areas, she added.

Workers collect horse manure by bike along the streets of downtown Mackinac Island. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

Almost 50 percent of all full-scale food waste composting facilities are located in just seven states—California, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, Texas, and North Carolina, according to a study from BioCycle. In contrast, the central, Mountain, and Southwest states are considered “composting deserts,” Norris-Waldt said. The Midwest lies somewhere in the middle between these barren regions and the coasts.

Nationally, yard waste composting is more common than food waste composting, which is costlier and more labor intensive, Norris-Waldt said. The same study from BioCycle surveyed 105 facilities and found that more than two-thirds of food waste operations were built in the last two decades.

Most programs begin using a subscription model instead of mandatory sorting, Norris-Waldt added. Mandatory sorting is difficult because a lack of widespread public knowledge on proper sorting can lead to higher levels of contamination, she explained.

The Mackinac System

Mackinac began composting in the 1990s, predating the recent spike in food-waste programs, just as the island’s onsite dumps were set to close. Burt doesn’t know exactly why the dumps were capped, but he suspects it was due to capacity and groundwater contamination concerns. Now, islanders ship landfill material to the mainland.

In the years since the dumps closed, composting has become a part of life for island residents and businesses. While sustainability and climate-consciousness drives composting efforts nationwide, for islanders, the benefits of the waste management system extend further.

Mackinac residents and visitors collect paper products, kitchen scraps, and manure in green compost bags that are sold by Mackinac DPW. The green bags cost only $2, while the trash bags cost $4.50, to encourage residents to sort as much as possible.

A horse-drawn wagon called a “dray” then picks up compost on the same schedule as trash, and a separate “slop wagon” comes around to the island’s two large hotels during the summer to collect kitchen waste, said Gabe Cowell, the island’s solid waste facility manager.

The “slop wagon,” a dray carrying food scraps, travels down Market St. and through town on Mackinac Island. A worker then unloads slop from Mission Point Resort at the solid waste facility. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

Once waste is collected, city workers drive it uphill to the solid waste facility, where there are six bays processing two piles of compost each. The task is significantly reduced in scale during the winter, with only one or two bays in use and tarped to maintain the heat. Cowell mixes the compost piles almost every morning and moves the piles in the bay once a week.

Since horses provide transportation on the island, Mackinac compost contains a lot of manure. “We go from a herd of probably 15 to 20 horses in the winter to over 600 in the summer,” said Burt. “The waste material they produce is drastically bigger.” Horse droppings are quickly whisked away, contributing up to 40 to 60 yards of manure to the solid waste facility a day from June through September.

The compost processes for about a month before it is sifted and shredded. Meanwhile, businesses and residences can place orders at $10 a yard. Then, about every six months, workers distribute the compost throughout the island.

Compost adds organic matter to soil, making it more resilient during both droughts or floods, Norris-Waldt said. In the case of Mackinac, the rich soil has become the community’s solution to the island’s rocky topography. “Mackinac has next to no topsoil, especially [in the residential areas]. It’s mostly beach gravel,” Burt said. “So, if you want a lawn or garden, you need topsoil.”

The topsoil made from compost on Mackinac is used in gardens at personal residences and businesses around the Island. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

When Lewand and his family first began to visit in the early 1970s, residential gardens were sparse. But in the years since the program began, composting has quite literally changed the island’s landscape.

Now retired, Lewand maintains a flower garden at his summer residence overlooking Lake Huron, overflowing with vibrant green foliage interspersed by red monardas and purple dahlias. The garden is typical of Mackinac’s famous summer cottages lining its east and west bluffs.

In addition to feeding the soil, composting programs can provide communities with an economic boost, offering trickle-down benefits and good employment opportunities, Norris-Waldt explained. Mackinac employs a four-person solid waste facility team in the summer, while some resorts and hotels on the islands have entire teams dedicated to waste management.

“The bigger a business gets, the more people you need dedicated to trash all the time,” Burt explained.

Education and Communication

Composting is not without its challenges, however, and Mackinac is no exception. For example, contamination is one ongoing obstacle facing composting programs across the U.S. The main sources of compost contamination are persistent herbicides, non-compostable trash, and PFAS, according to the composting council. Contamination can be combated by education and communication efforts in communities, Norris-Waldt said, both between compost facilities and compost contributors and also businesses and their employees.

“Every facility has very specific situations and rules about what they can take,” Norris-Waldt said. “So, communities and programs really have to be tuned in to the compost manufacturer to find out what they can take to make their program work.” Beyond that, it often takes time, training, and prolonged commitment to get communities “to embrace composting as a business and allow it to exist and flourish.”

Last year, for instance, the Mission Point Resort staff realized they did not fully understand the solid waste facility’s process and timing, and that this gap in knowledge was impacting their ability to collaborate. Mission Point collects cardboard and manure for compost and also sends a slop wagon with scraps from its many restaurants to the solid waste facility every other day. But the resort staff had become frustrated by gaps in service.

Mission Point Resort regularly buys back soil from the city’s composting program. A restaurant at Mission Point Resort sorts kitchen scraps for compost that supports the island’s gardens. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

Their proposed solution: informational tours of the facility for key staff members.

“We wanted to understand what we could do differently, and what we could do to help,” said Stan Antkoviak, the resort’s director of facilities. Mackinac DPW showed the resort just how long it took their small crew to unload cardboard and Mission Point Resort ultimately bought a cardboard bailer to make the process more efficient.

Both parties considered the tours a massive success. Now, the recycling manager at the resort holds yearly seminars on best practices for staff members and always tries to make herself available for questions.

Sarah Ombry, public relations and marketing manager at Mission Point, said that by “communicating about waste management in layman’s terms,” the recycling team has made composting and recycling “just a part of the routine.”

Employee investment is just as important further along in the composting process, Burt said. For him and the solid waste facility team, this has meant centering collaboration. “I can make all of the executive decisions, but it’s the staff on the ground that is making daily decisions,” he explained. “Any process changes need to be developed with the staff; otherwise, it’s just not going to work the way you think it will.”

Though it has taken years, Mackinac Island has overcome some common obstacles in establishing its composting program and making it a normal part of everyday life.

Mackinac DPW still faces a number of challenges toward maintaining and optimizing the composting process, including the cost of equipment and need to adapt to policy changes. To that end, Burt recommends continuous education and keeping an eye on what’s happening in other communities.

“It’s not glamorous and it’s not usually a lead headline, but it’s definitely worth putting a lot of energy into learning what is new, what other people are doing, and how they’re handling the same issues you are,” he said.

The post This Car-Free Michigan Island Is Leading on Composting appeared first on Civil Eats.

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