Global food waste has been a growing issue today, especially from environmental perspectives such as the emission of greenhouse gases.
To combat, AdkAction has announced the “Adirondack Compost for Good” project, which will promote food waste composting in the Adirondacks as New York heads toward the placement of the NYS Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law from January 1, 2022. This law requires businesses and institutions that generate an annual average of two tons of wasted food per week or more must:
- donate excess edible food; and
- recycle all remaining food scraps if they are within 25 miles of an organics recycler (composting facility, anaerobic digester, etc.).
(New York State, n.d.)
The Adirondack Compost for Good project was founded by a team of four Adirondackers that are passionate about composting and its goal is to help Adirondack communities turn food and other organic “wastes” into high-quality compost. This process keeps nutrients in the community, which builds local resilience, heals soils, and helps reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (Adirondack Compost for Good, n.d.).
The composting process is done by the composter drum, built by one of the founding members, John Culpepper. One composter can process about 35,000 pounds of unsorted food waste (e.g., meat and dairy) and carbon bulking material (e.g. wood chips and sawdust) per year, completing the composting process in just a few weeks.
The appealing feature of this project is its contribution to the sustainability of the Adirondacks, the relatively fast paced food waste composting, and the inexpensiveness since the composers were designed to be simple. The free design guide and operating manual are available too for anyone that wants to try composting. In addition, there is also a 6-minute-long quick instruction video on “building a three bin compost system in your backyard” on their website (Adirondack Compost for Good, n.d.), which allows people to experience the composting and sustainable cycle of food very casually.
Furthermore, the project has been expanding into an interesting research on composting human urine. The members tried to create a finished compost by only involving urine and a carbon source compost just like commercial compost used by farmers, to test the significance of human urine on fertilization of the soil.
To meet the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for Class A biosolids compost, they ensured that it reaches over 130℉ for more than 3 consecutive days during the compost to avoid potential pathogens. They have demonstrated that by using a simple recipe of humane urine + water + sawdust (in the form of compressed wood pallets), and the result from the Penn state compost lab confirmed that the finished compost from the Compost for Good is just as good as many commercial composts.
According to the Adirondack Compost for Good project’s website, it has helped to compost 261, 377 pounds of food waste and other organics, prevented 35,025 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions until today (Adirondack Compost for Good, n.d.). The idea of urine composting has been appreciated and has currently been awarded funding to stimulate organics recycling business development, which would hopefully encourage further advancement in their research and applications in the world.
John says that on a large-scale, upcycling human urine through the composting process could benefit food waste composting, sustainable agriculture, and sustainable forestry. Moreover, composting urine would reduce the load on existing wastewater treatment plans and could reduce negative environmental impacts (Adirondack Compost for Good, n.d.).
Works Cited
Adirondack Compost for Good. (n.d.). Adk Action. Retrieved from Adirondack Compost for Good: https://www.adkaction.org/project/compost-for-good/
New York State. (n.d.). Department of Environmental Conservation. Retrieved from Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law: https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/114499.html