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.
