Episode 27. Neil Seldman - Institute of Local Self Reliance
Listen to this great episode with Neil Seldman, one of the most knowledgeable people on the history of environmentalism and waste in the United States. This article, Monopoly and the U.S. Waste Knot, influenced Charlie to change the direction in his career, and focus on community composting as a solution to breakup the centralization of waste management.
Make Your Holidays Green! - O-Town Compost Gift Cards
The holidays don’t have to be a time for over-consumption putting more strain on mother earth.
Help O-Town Compost spread the community composting movement, and get your special someone a gift card for our convenient composting service. It’s the gift that the environment can approve of, and keeps on giving, as food scraps turn into rich soil.
O-Town Compost Leads The Fight Against Food Waste
Credits to Rob Greenfield Films
Episode #11. Rust Belt Riders - Cleveland, OH
Oh boy, this was an inspirational interview. As we hear from more and more community composters around the nation, we gain perspective on what a successful community-driven business looks like in order to emulate in our own practices.
Daniel, one of the Rust Belt Riders’ co-founders, started like many composters in the food service industry. He witnessed firsthand how much edible food and food scraps were going into the trash, and knew it was wrong. Today, the Rust Belt Riders are making a huge positive impression on the Cleveland, OH area, and absolutely crushing it when it comes to organics recycling and creating a healthy soil for gardeners and farmers.
Episode #8 - Strengthening the Relationship with Your Local Municipality - Vanessa Balta Cook
Listen to Charlie's latest episode interviewing The City of Winter Park’s Sustainability Director, Vanessa Balta Cook, and how local municipalities can team up with community composters.
Episode #7. Naples Compost, Owner Hannah Rinaldi (Naples, Florida)
The community composting movement is sweeping the state of Florida, and we absolutely love to see other successful composters, like Naples Compost, crushing it in out home state. Listen to this inspiring interview on any podcast platform (Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc).
Check out their website: https://naplescompost.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/naplescompost/
Compost Giveback - Just in Time For Spring Planting
It’s that time of year again when the dirty bearded hipster version of Santa Claus drops 20-pound buckets of O-Town Black Gold on each of his subscribers’ door steps. Just in time for people to get their Spring planting on!
This March giveback, we are set to return 2,300 pounds of compost to our amazing customers, and 1,760 pounds to Fleet Farming for those who opted to donate their share. In these last six months since our last giveback, we’ve turned close to 23 tons of food scraps into beautiful rich compost to improve Central Florida’s sandy soils.
It still boggles our mind how this…
Becomes this…
Episode #3. Compost Queens, San Antonio's Bokashi Composters
Kate Jaceldo is the co-founder of Compost Queens, a company that transforms food waste into compost. A special-ed teacher, social worker and transition facilitator for a public school district, her passion for a sustainable food system and concerns about the climate crisis radically changed her course. Born and raised in South Texas, today the Compost Queen works hard to save the planet one bucket at a time.
Compost Queens: https://www.compostqueenstx.com/
FB and IG: @compostqueens
Subscribe for O-Town Compost's convenient residential service and use promo code WESTORANGE for your first month free! https://o-towncompost.com/subscribe
FB Page: @otowncompost
Instagram: @otowncompost
Twitter: @otowncompost
Episode #2. Compost For Life - Miami's Community Composter
2020: A Year To Remember
Goals Achieved
In spite of a global pandemic, O-Town Compost managed to recycle over 50,000 pounds of food scraps in its inaugural year. Our team grew from one to four members comprised of Orlando’s most passionate and dedicated individuals. The type of people who don’t think twice before reaching into a bucket full of decayed food waste to pull out a rubber band or a bread tie.
Most importantly, the Orlando community has shown us that they support our mission whole-heartedly. Over 140 residents and businesses have chosen to align themselves with our values to keep food scraps out of the landfill. Considering that it was our goal to reach 100 subscribers in our first year, we blew it out of the water!
Hardships
Although, 2020 wasn’t all cupcakes and rainbows. Unfortunately, the pandemic weakened the economy enough that a dozen or so subscribers had to cancel service. The sad truth in our current economic system is that recycling food waste is a luxury not a norm. This is why we are pushing local municipalities and government officials at the City of Orlando, Winter Park, and Orange County, to begin to make plans for food waste recycling infrastructure and policies mandating large generators of commercial food waste to divert organics from the waste stream.
Also, let’s not pretend that composting isn’t laborious. We have to thank all the OTC staff and volunteers who put their sweat into the semi-manual process of screening finished compost and emptying ASP bins with pitchforks. I know my back needs a vacation.
September Composting Site Tour
It gives us immense joy to show people how their banana peels, paper towels, and celery stocks become black gold compost. We return to the story time and time again of how increased soil health can fuel a local food abundance and create a resilient community.
In the Fall, we gave tours of our composting site that doubled as a Permaculture tour. It was demonstrated how humans can thrive in a biodiverse system and passively grow their own food.
At the composting site there’s a wide variety of edible and medicinal plants growing, such as moringa, papaya, Tandora cucumber, katuk, Okinawa spinach, and Barbados cherry. A dozen or so subscribers attended and brought their friends and family members to learn about the composting process. Some went home with plant cuttings that they could propagate in their own gardens. Soil is truly life, and our health starts with the health of our soil at the base of the food chain.
Ambitions for 2021
We believe that we’re on the precipice of something big here for 2021. If we continue to meet our goals, by the end of 2021, we will be capturing and recycling 5 tons of food scraps every week. Increasing our capacity by 5x. This, of course, will be difficult to achieve until we land a larger composting site, and the right equipment, but a round of investment is likely in store for 2021, so we can scale.
Right now we’re enjoying the journey while O-Town Compost is becoming a household name in Central Florida. Nonetheless, our eye if fixed on the prize, providing the capacity to recycle all of the organic waste out there in Orange County, and to sustain a zero waste society.
Happy Holidays to the Orlando Composting Community
Dear O-Town Compost Community,
It’s been quite a ride so far. We’re proud to see that so many Orlando residents feel it’s necessary to recycle their food scraps, and chose us to make it happen. This community support means so much to us, and acts as a reminder every day that what we’re doing is making a difference.
Ultimately, O-Town Compost seeks to make composting as easy as possible, without pests or odors, in order to boost participation and fuel a county-wide movement. Imagine the Orlando metro area, with thousands of composting households. Whole neighborhoods putting out their O-Town Compost bucket, and admiring each other’s lush gardens fertilized by O-Town Black Gold.
It’s exciting the opportunity that composting presents as a viable solution to managing the 350,000 tons of organic waste that goes to Orange County Landfill each year. Sometimes this volume seems insurmountable! But we’re on track to grow into an organization that can handle it within 10-15 years. More importantly is the shift in the cultural mindset here in Central Florida. Our mission is to change how people look at their food scraps, and think twice before throwing a banana peel in the trash. This is going to take years, but that’s okay, because we’re in it for the long-haul.
Thank you for joining us along our crazy journey, and we hope you have happy holidays and a very merry Christmas.
Best,
O-Town Compost Team
PS. We’re offering composting subscription gift cards in 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year quantities. For more info, click the button below.
Our Black Friday Deal for the Environment
Here at O-Town Compost, we aren’t a big fan of the consumer holiday, Black Friday. Although, this year, we are. It’s the day that people in West Orange County can join the movement to reduce waste going to the landfill, and join us in striving for a zero waste Central Florida.
The meaning behind Black Friday doesn’t have to be about mindless consumption. It can be about becoming closer as a community through recycling our food scraps!
Worm Composting Lodge (DIY)
Convert kitchen food scraps into rich garden compost with the power of worms and this simple cardboard “lodge." It sets up quickly with just a drill, hacksaw, and shovel.
Install this composter with just an 8" diameter tube in your garden or any convenient spot. Once installed it requires nothing but vegetable scraps, some leaves or shredded paper, and a bit of soil.
Unlike other above ground worm cafes, this cardboard model costs under $8.00. You will also need to find a lodge “roof,” I use an inverted salad bowl!
Now your worms will produce super-rich compost that feed plants immediately surrounding your lodge, plus create additional pounds of rich compost within a couple months to dig up and spread around your garden.
Composting 101
Charlie Pioli gives a presentation on food waste recycling, including vermacomposting and his reviews of different backyard composters. Why is composting better for the environment than standard recycling, and what is O-Town Compost able to accomplish on the community composting scene in Orlando, FL?