Description

How food scraps are managed is a choice for many households in our area. When leftover food is put in the trash and delivered to the local landfill, it decomposes and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas that adversely affects our climate. However, if food scraps are aerobically composted, it is converted to helpful microbes. These microbes can increase organic content in soils, thereby increasing the soils’ water-holding capacity and helping to cool our local climate.

Rockbridge residents have several options to compost locally, including household scale composting, vermicomposting (earthworm castings) and participating in neighborhood compost collection that is delivered to a professional farmer who builds thermal compost piles.

If you can’t compost at your house, Rockbridge Conservation’s Food Recovery Co-op may be just the right solution for you! It is run by volunteers and helps improve the soil for a local organic farm. Here’s how it works:

• residents collect food scraps in a bucket
• every Sunday participants drop off their buckets at a collection point and pick up a clean bucket for the coming week
• the buckets are then collected by the farmer who adds them to his compost pile and after it is ready, he’ll add it to his farm fields.

By contributing food residue/food scraps, participants are partnering with a farmer who will manage this material for the benefit of increasing organic content in local soils. This method for handling food waste eliminates the harmful methane gasses produced by your food as it breaks down, and by diverting your food to our Food Recovery Co-op, you are helping reduce methane emissions in our local landfill.

Interested in participating? Download the How to Compost document, which will tell you want can and cannot be composted.

To learn more, contact Lauren McCaughrin. Email: GlobowlCafe@Gmail.com