Listen to the latest community composting podcast as Charlie chats with Kali, the owner of Suncoast Compost in Tampa, FL. Our composting neighbors in Central Florida address the challenges and success of running a small business focused on diverting food scraps from the landfill.
Episode #6 - CompostableLA, Los Angeles, CA - Founder, Monique Figueiredo
Monique founded Compostable in 2019 when she saw a need for additional community composting resources in Los Angeles. Her vision for a community-led organization is woven through the fiber of Compostable's foundation.
Enjoy listening to another fascinating interview with Monique!
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.
Reducing Trash and Saving Money by Diverting Your Food Scraps
It’s hard to understand why composting is so necessary for the environment unless you take a trip to the face of the Orange County landfill. You witness the seemingly endless organic waste being dumped from dawn to dusk, the horrible smell of methane, and the loud beeping of bulldozers pushing trash into mountain-sized piles. It’s disheartening to say the least.
Our trash goes to OC Landfill on Young Pine Rd.
Compostable and recyclable material comprises between 70-80% of what goes to the landfill for disposal, meaning that the vast majority of what we throw away has a home either in your curbside recycling cart or with O-Town Compost’s composting program. This is the stuff that should be easy to divert right? Unfortunately, it takes a fair amount of education to teach people that there’s value in material even after it’s been consumed.
Also, not to let the corporate producers off the hook, but there needs to be greater extended producer responsibility (EPR). Some consumer products are just about impossible to recover, based on the way they’re made. DuPoint and Dow Chemical are great examples of Fortune 500 companies that would rather go to great lengths to get their single-use Styrofoam or plastic products labeled “recyclable” than actually shut down production and go a different route. Believe me, I’ve done consulting work for Dow Chemical’s Hefty Energy Bag Program, taking place in Cobb County, GA and Boise, ID, and it’s a perfect example of shucking responsibility and taking the path of least resistance to appear like they care about the environment. Green washing.
Despite the gloomy reality, a change is a comin’ (in the melody of Sam Cooke). The community composting movement is sweeping the country, and O-Town Compost is laying the ground work here in Central Florida to make it convenient for people to do the right thing with their food waste.
Right off the bat, after signing up, O-Town Compost subscribers experience firsthand a lighter and cleaner trash. The 96-gallon cart that most municipalities give their residents becomes WAY more than one needs. Less trash going to the landfill means huge cost savings for our local governments, longer life for our landfill, and a healthier environment. OTC’s subscribers should be rewarded with a reduced price on their trash services bill. For example, many Massachusetts towns have implemented a Pay As You Throw program, incentivizing its residents to waste less. Those who choose not to recycle their food waste, pay more. Basically, the program functions where households pay a variable rate for garbage collection depending on the size of the container they choose with the smaller the size being cheaper.
Saving $ with an OTC subscription
Having a black and gold O-Town Compost bucket not only reduces your volume of trash, but also saves subscribers money in the form of helping them buy groceries in right-sized quantities. Inevitably, everyone has food scraps that are inedible (banana peels, avocado pits, cucumber skins, etc), but it’s the uneaten leftovers and expired food sitting in the back of the fridge that really hurts the pocketbook. When you’re consciously separating your food waste from your trash, you begin to take note of your purchasing habits. “Maybe I shouldn’t have bought two containers of spinach, even though it was buy 2 for $5." Just one would’ve sufficed.”
In the next 10-20 years, our new norm will be to source separating food waste from the trash. For those who are getting on board early, it’ll be a lot less uncomfortable in the long run to adapt.
We Need Your Support! Contact a Representative Today!
O-Town Compost has been on the Central Florida community composting scene for 7 months now, and has been steadily growing. Our goals are to grow food waste recycling infrastructure around the region, and support sustainable agriculture while doing so.
If you like what we do, please contact your local politician and let them know about your support for our mission. An individual’s voice goes a long way in letting our elected officials know that O-Town Compost is making a difference. You don’t have to be a subscriber to see that what we’re doing is moving the needle.
We appreciate you writing an individual heartfelt message, or you can use the template below:
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Subject: On Behalf of O-Town Compost, Orlando’s Community Composter
Dear [insert title and name of city representative],
I am writing to you as a concerned [name of municipality] resident, who strongly supports striking a balance between economic growth and environmental conservation. In [name of municipality], wasted materials are mounting daily while the infrastructure to recycle that waste is substantially inadequate. Single-stream recycling has proven to be an uphill battle, as Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) fight contamination and cannot find end-markets for their recyclables. According to multiple recent studies, 99 percent of truck loads carrying recyclables in the County were rejected at Waste Management’s MRF last year, and transported to the Orange County Landfill as a result. That means that nearly 100 percent of everything we put out to the curb as residents is ending up trashed.
This is a serious problem as the state is running out of landfill space. Fortunately, we have another option to reduce our waste footprint, and that is composting our organic waste, which makes up a sizable 40 percent of all that goes to the landfill. Moreover, adding organic waste to our landfills contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and CO2.
O-Town Compost is a small-scale community composter that is making a huge impact with its food scrap collection service, converting both pre- and post-consumer food waste (including meat and dairy wastes) into finished compost for local agriculture projects, such as Fleet Farming. Its mission is to grow into an organization that can handle the majority of Central Florida’s organic waste stream (including animal waste, such as horse manure), and transition the Orlando-area into a circular economy.
Small community composting businesses, similar to O-Town Compost, are active in cities and counties around the nation and are proving that they can move the needle in keeping food waste (as well as pet waste and other organic materials) out of our landfills. This frees up space for non-recyclable trash, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions produced by our landfills. O’Town Compost’s model (https://o-towncompost.com/ ) is similar to Bootstrap Compost in Boston, MA and Rust Belt Riders in Cleveland, OH.
I am writing to you today to voice my support for their efforts in our community, and I would like to see [name of municipality] find ways to incentivize residents and businesses to use their services. Ideally, food waste collection and composting should save cities money, while solving our landfill challenges and beautifying our green spaces with organic compost.
I greatly appreciate your attention to this issue.
Sincerely,
[Your name and address]
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Here is a list of some politicians you can email, depending on which area’s jurisdiction you fall under:
Winter Park, FL
Steve Leary - Mayor of Winter Park, FL - sleary@cityofwinterpark.org
Marty Sullivan - Commissioner Seat #1 - msullivan@cityofwinterpark.org
Shelia DiCiccio - Commissioner Seat #2 - sdeciccio@cityofwinterpark.org
Carolyn Cooper - Commissioner Seat #3 - ccooper@cityofwinterpark.org
Todd Weaver - Commissioner Seat #4 - tweaver@cityofwinterpark.org
City of Orlando, FL
Buddy Dyer - Mayor of Orlando, FL - buddy.dyer@orlando.gov
Jim Gray - District #1 - jim.gray@orlando.gov
Tony Ortiz - District #2 - tony.ortiz@orlando.gov
Robert Stuart - District #3 - robert.stuart@orlando.gov
Patty Sheehan - District #4 - patty.sheehan@orlando.gov
Regina Hill - District #5 - regina.hill@orlando.gov
Bakari Burns - District #6 - bakari.burns@orlando.gov
Orange County Unincorporated (To find your district & commissioner: https://www.orangecountyfl.net/BoardofCommissioners.aspx#.XrAW_6hKjD6)
Jerry Demings - Mayor of Orange County, FL - mayor@ocfl.net
Betsy VanderLey - District #1 - District1@ocfl.net
Christine Moore - District #2 - District2@ocfl.net
Mayra Uribe - District #3 - District3@ocfl.net
Maribel Gomez Cordero - District #4 - District4@ocfl.net
Emily Bonilla - District #5 - District5@ocfl.net
Victoria Siplin - District #6 - District6@ocfl.net
First Batch of Compost Will Be Distributed to Subscribers Early!
To show our immense appreciation for our loyal Orlando subscribers in the time of the COVID19 pandemic, we thought it was time to give back, and move everyone’s distribution date up early. Due the shutdown, more people are at home cooking and gardening, and it just makes sense. This doesn’t mean that our subscribers WON’T receive their regularly scheduled share 6-months from their subscription date either. Everyone who selected to “receive” their share of compost will still be delivered an additional 20 lbs 6 months from the date they hit “subscribe.” All we ask is to please empty the bucket, and put it back on your porch for us to collect during a normal pickup day, so we can keep reusing them. (Fun Fact: The 3.5-gallon compost buckets are old cream cheese icing buckets from Publix!)
Four hundred pounds of compost is going out this week and next to our subscribers who selected to receive their shares, and 400 pounds are going to Fleet Farming as a donation to their urban gardening efforts. A total of 800 pounds of O-Town Black Gold will be recycled into the community to improve our soil’s health! That’s right…Thanks to your banana peels, flower trimmings, and coffee grounds we have finished the composting process on our first batch of compost! We encourage you to use it in your vegetable gardens, as a potting mix, or just sprinkle it through your lawn to improve the seeding process.
Isn’t #CommunityComposting a beautiful thing?
Composting Continues
Well guys, we've made it to the middle of April.
We're still operating (food waste collection services are considered waste haulers, and that is considered an essential service).
Food waste is being created now more than ever (we hear folks asking for MORE buckets because they are cooking more frequently).
Some of you are gardening (it’s a good time to create a victory garden and stay resilient to shocks in the food system like this .
Amazing connections are occurring (keep up the good work, everyone!).
We send all our best to the O-Town community -
Featured
Orlando's Community Composter Diverts 2 Tons!
Thank you to our community composters that helped us achieve this milestone!
Customer Feature - Jeannette from College Park
“Have you ever thought about composting?? Or maybe you have tried the city’s free compost bin and didn’t get good results- or worse you got flies and smells?? This was me too! I wanted to compost mainly to produce “good” dirt, but also for the environmental benefits- less waste going to the landfill and avoiding unwanted greenhouse gases.”
“I attended a seminar by O-Town Compost about composting and whoa – there was a lot more to it than I thought. You need the correct mix of nitrogen and carbon, right temp, enough water etc…well that seemed to be more than I wanted to take on in my back yard.”
“That is where O-Town Compost’s food scrap collection service comes in. I tell you it could not be easier…you simply put your food scraps (and other approved items) in the provided air tight bucket and put it out for collection (weekly or biweekly). No fuss no mess no smells no flies…composting for dummies!! I could not be happier with the service. Super easy and the company is awesome to deal with. Win – win…I get to compost with none of the hassle and reap the benefits in that twice a year I get some of that O-Town “black gold” to use in my yard! At the same time diverting my food waste from the landfill to help the environment. You should definitely give O-Town Compost a try … you won’t be disappointed!”
O-Town Compost welcomes three more zip codes into its service area! 32812, 32839, and 32809!
Due to popular demand, O-Town Compost is expanding its services. Are we still not servicing your zip code? Send us an inquiry to petition for your area! https://o-towncompost.com/contact
We track the number of customers in each area of town and regularly study our routes to see where new customers could be added.
O-Town Compost Celebrates Its First Ton Diverted!
Thank you to all our awesome subscribers and customers who are committed to food waste recycling in Orlando, Florida !!! It’s an exciting journey to be a waste warrior.
O-Town Compost Extends Its Reach Into College Park! (32804)!!!
“Let the food waste come.” - Charlie Pioli, Founder of O-Town Compost (with a battle-worn yet determined look on his face)
We’re excited to welcome the residents of zip code 32804 to our expanded service area! The College Park area is an example of how a number of people in the community came together to request food waste collection service, and O-Town Compost listened. It’s much more efficient, environmentally and economically, for O-Town Compost to run a route in an area with a greater client population.
We are hoping to be able to stretch farther in the next year, as we gain traction around Orlando. I have a feeling West Orlando (Winter Gardens, Windermere, Ocoee, etc) will be smelling O-Town Black Gold sometime during 2020.
Compost On Orlando!
College Park joins the community composting movement.
Now Accepting Meat, Fish, and Dairy
For those who wonder what we accept, remember this slogan:
“If it grows, it goes.”
Basically, if it grew out of the ground, we will accept it in our compost program. The website’s FAQ page does a pretty good job at answers any questions you may have, but always feel free to contact us at info@o-towncompost.com.
Things We Do Compost:
Fruits and veggies
Coffee grounds, filters, and tea bags
Paper towels, napkins, and paper plates
Egg shells
Pasta and grains
Meat and bones
Cheese and other dairy products
Things We Do Not Compost:
Fruit stickers (please remove from produce before composting)
Pet waste including excrement or food
Paper cups
Kleenex or facial tissues
Any type of plastics including most bio-degradable plastics
Pesticide infused products for killing rodents or cockroaches
The law according to O-Town Compost.
Happy Holidays From O-Town Compost
The holidays are meant to be a time for bringing people together, and showing appreciation for one another. We just want to say how immensely grateful we are for the support we’ve received from the people of Central Florida. Shout out to Orlando Permaculture, Ideas For US Orlando and UCF branches, East End Market, Cuplet Fern Chapter of Seminole County, Central Florida Fruit Society, friends and family who donated to our GoFundMe, and, of course, our subscribers!
We would be remiss if we didn’t say we have big plans for 2020. On the forefront of our minds is to continue our marketing campaign while educating people on the importance of composting and allow them to get over their unfounded fears of odors and rodents. Our other goals for The New Year involve;
We want to increase the volume of food waste we’re receiving to multiple tons per week
Making relationships with event planners, caterers, and venue spaces is essential for our Event Food Waste Recycling Program, and Zero Waste Event service
Office spaces, who generate food waste and coffee grounds in their break rooms, would be an ideal fit for our service. These corporate partnerships give firms an outlet to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability (#practicewhatyoupreach)
And lastly, residents on the West side of I-4, will soon be given the option to subscribe for O-Town Compost’s residential food waste collection service. We predict that by the summer of 2020, O-Town Compost will be servicing the zip codes of College Park, Windermere, Winter Gardens, Ocoee, and parts of Apoka.
Currently, our business operations are a new concept to a lot of people in Orlando. As people become more accustomed to us and our mission, we will inevitably grow. The 1,200 pounds of food waste we’ve diverted in the first month and a half of being open for business is really only a sliver of what’s out there. Cheers to a grimy and successful 2020!
Happy Holidays,
O-Town Compost Founder, Charlie Pioli
Why We Compost in Orlando
At O-Town Compost, we believe in a healthy balance of sustainable growth, which means giving back to the ecosystem what we take.
Orlando was once known for its agricultural presence. Citrus groves stretching as far as the eye could see, and farm land that sprawled from Apoka to Christmas with only a clump of buildings downtown to disrupt the horizon. Heck, I’ve even talked to an UCF alumni who remembers hitching up her horse outside her classrooms. Then, in 1971, Disney decided to open its famous resort and theme park, and the boom started.
Composting is a regenerative practice that allows us to bring back some of that natural habitat that we lost to development. Traditionally, compost replaces nutrients lost in the soil that were taken by the plants that eventually became our food. This fertility loss was replaced with organic compost after every crop cycle, introducing a cocktail of healthy bacteria and nutrients to began building the soil structure once again. It’s no joke when they say “it all starts with the soil.”
At the urban and suburban levels, reverting a small quarter acre lot from lawn to native habitat can invite bees, insects, butterflies, and birds completely altering the space to form a mini-ecosystem. That’s why at O-Town Compost we want to remain small and local to create mini-ecosystems of food waste collection to composting to growing food again. We are helping organizations and individuals change Orlando, pound by pound, into a hybrid between development and nature. A place where the ecosystem isn’t being wiped out, nor are the people being told to leave, but a coexistence. Sign up to start community composting in your neighborhood today!
Guiding Principles of Community Composting:
Resources recovered: Waste is reduced; food scraps and other organic materials are diverted from disposal and composted.
Locally based and closed loop: Organic materials are a community asset, and are generated and recycled into compost within the same neighborhood or community.
Organic materials returned to soils: Compost is used to enhance local soils, support local food production, and conserve natural ecology by improving soil structure and maintaining nutrients, carbon, and soil microorganisms.
Community-scaled and diverse: Composting infrastructure is diverse, distributed, and sustainable; systems are scaled to meet the needs of a self-defined community. (O-Town Compost is coming to West Orlando this summer!)
Community engaged, empowered, and educated: Compost programming engages and educates the community in food systems thinking, resource stewardship, or community sustainability, while providing solutions that empower individuals, businesses, and institutions to capture organic waste and retain it as a community resource.
Community supported: Aligns with community goals (such as healthy soils and healthy people) and is supported by the community it serves. The reverse is true, too; a community composting program supports community social, economic, and environmental well-being.
The Community Composting Movement Is Gaining Momentum
The founding of O-Town Compost was heavily influenced by other community composting operations around the country, like Bootstrap Compost in Boston, Let Us Compost in Athens, GA, and Rust Belt Riders in Cleveland. All are great examples of small local composters with a long list of residential subscribers who have been diverting massive quantities of food waste and making a positive contribution to their surrounding cities. The opportunity exists in every U.S. city, where successful organics programs are typically nowhere to be found, and the local governments are more focused on improving lagging recycling programs. Food waste management has been left to the private sector to deal with in large part.
Typically, the large waste haulers (a.k.a. Big Waste), like Waste Management and Republic Services, would get involved in the action, but since they have a constant inflow of trash into their landfills and incinerators, they’re okay with the status quo. Food waste is heavy after all, and the more tonnage coming into the landfill means more revenue. Although, it’s doubtful that these big companies will remain on the sidelines for long. In the meantime, small micro-haulers are carving out a niche in cities across the East Coast, South, and Mid-West.
Community Composters around the U.S.
The Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR) has been an instrumental part of the composting movement with their “Composting For Community” Podcast, and the organization of webinars and conferences to bring the nation’s decentralized composters together for sharing knowledge. One of ILSR’s feature writers, Neil Seldman, has been a force in his activism and criticism against Big Waste for years. Mr. Seldman’s article in December of 2018, “Monopoly and the U.S. Waste Knot” inspired O-Town Compost’s founder to look differently at the waste industry he was part of and at current U.S. recycling practices. Ultimately, recycling has suffered since the introduction of single stream, which was a recycling program talked up by large waste haulers looking to vertically integrate their collection systems. If you’re interested in making the greatest environmental impact, diverting food waste is the clear winner over standard recycling. Thus, O-Town Compost was born with food waste in mind, and the wind at our backs. Seemingly, there is unimaginable potential to repair Orlando’s eco-system and shift away from landfill waste management in Orange County, FL.