Helping to save the planet is all well and good, but if it’s going to inconvenience us, I’d like some immediate benefit. So how about this: My trash doesn’t stink.
That is what got me into composting.
At my house, all the peels, fat, coffee grounds and other organic detritus from cooking and eating gets put in a bucket under the sink and then tossed behind the barn. Mixed with leaves, the pile eventually turns into decent compost that I sprinkle over the yard. Which is nice, but it’s the fact that I don’t have to smell rotting food in the kitchen that keeps me going.
I mention this because last week’s column concerned UNH research about farm composting, which led some readers to point out that they aren’t farms but would like to know more anyway. This led me to Meagan and Lou Saviano, who run Renewal Garden and Compost, the private company that collects compost from homes in Concord.
“In Concord we’ve got about 75 residents that do home pickup and ap proximately 40 that do drop-off at Concord Co-op ,” said Lou Saviano. “Each year, it has been growing.”
Renewal also runs the compost pick-up at the Bow Community Center. The town pays $104 a month to have Renewal place two 64-gallon toters where townsfolk dump their compost.
“Every Tuesday, they come and pick them up and give us two new toters. Pretty much they’re awfully full by Monday afternoon; we haven’t had the problem of an overflow but they’re full,” said Sherri Cheney, chair of the Bow Recycling and Solid Waste Committee.
Bow comes close to breaking even on the deal, she said, because they don’t have tipping fees at the trash incinerator in Concord for the food scraps that Renewal takes. But money isn’t the point, she added.
“People just recognize that they should be composting and not everybody wants to throw it in the woods and attract the animals,” she said. “I think they’re quite pleased to be able to do it – it’s doing the right thing.”
Also, their trash doesn’t stink.
No, don’t throw it into the woods
Speaking of throwing your food scraps into the woods – don’t. It attracts animals and gets them dependent on our garbage instead of healthier food sources. That applies to hiking, too. Orange peels and apple cores are organic but they disrupt the ecosystem, so pack them up and take them out just as you would a plastic bag.
Thanks to Marynell Noonan, who lives on Long Pond Road in Concord, who asked me about home composting after hearing a conversation in the gym about tossing it into the woods.
I am lucky to have enough room to create a compost pile on my property that’s free from critters except crows and the occasional raccoon. Most homes and all apartments don’t have that luxury, however, so if municipalities don’t want to pick it up along with recycling, companies like Renewal are needed.
Renewal’s model is pretty simple: Customers pay them a fee ($32 a month with a $10 starter fee for weekly pickups, $18 a month for every other week) and they give you a bucket. You fill it with scraps and they come pick it up, leaving a replacement bucket. You can also drop-off the bucket at select sites for $15 a month. See renewalcompost.com for details.
Renewal takes your glop to J&F Farms in Derry, which turns it into compost that is used to help grow produce. This closes the loop: Dirt grows food, which decays into dirt.
Difficult business
Residential composting isn’t an easy business. Upper Valley Compost of Hanover tried to expand its residential business to Concord several years ago but quickly figured out the return wasn’t there. The labor costs of picking up items door to door is high, but the monetary return of compost isn’t.
This is a case where dollar value is a bad measuring stick for social value, no matter what the invisible hand thinks. Wise governments are starting to realize that depleting the world’s soils is a bad investment and filling up landfills is expensive, so they’re starting to force us to stop burying or burning our scraps.
Vermont has gone whole hog on this and is mandating composting at all levels, even people’s homes. New Hampshire is much more timid; as of Feb. 1, any place producing at least one ton of food waste per week, such as large restaurants, schools, hospitals and convention centers, can no longer send it to landfills or incinerators as long as there is a composting facility within 20 miles.
Renewal already picks up compost from a few such places – Tucker’s, Grappone Conference Center, New Hampshire Hospital – so the law might open up more business, which I imagine is more profitable than home pick-up.
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