Curbside residential composting on the North Shore of MA

[JenMcD]

The sweet smell of compost and success
Curbside organic recycling program wants you

By Lucy R. Sprague Frederiksen / Correspondent
Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle
Posted Oct 31, 2010 @ 12:23 PM

http://www.wickedlocal.com/wenham/features/x1272820247/The-sweet-smell-of-compost-and-success


Hamilton —
The award-winning Hamilton-Wenham Curbside Organic Recycling Program
wants YOU!

As the program reaches the sixth month of its first year in operation,
new participants can sign up for $50 for the remainder of the year,
plus the cost of a counter bucket and curbside barrel.

So far, the program participants are averaging about 17 pounds per
week per household of organic waste. This equals that much off the
amount of solid waste collected for each town. And participants are
getting back free local compost and the knowledge that they are
contributing to the environment.

Curbside Recycling started as a pilot program in Hamilton in 2009, in
a unique collaboration between the Hamilton Recycling Committee and
Peter Britton, local owner of Brick Ends Farm in Hamilton.

All the organic food scraps and yard waste are delivered to Britton’s
farm to turn into compost.

“It is a wonderful arrangement,” says Hamilton resident Gretel Clark,
the program’s creator and director. “What really holds up starting
these programs is where to take the organics. We are so lucky to have
a site right in town.”

Clark said Britton put her in touch with the program’s hauling
company, New England Solid Waste. Owner Roy Ferreira has been very
supportive of the program.

In March of this year, Wenham joined the program with the help of the
Wenham Recycling Committee and Wenham resident Helen Ribet, who Clark
said did a fabulous job of recruiting. About 550 families in both
towns have signed up to participate. According to Clark, Wenham now
makes up about a third of the participating households.

All participants paid $75 for a year’s collection and $29 for a
counter bucket and a green curbside barrel with wheels and a latched
lid, although the first 500 got free barrels and buckets, thanks to a
grant of $7,000 from the state Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP).

The DEP grant was matched by donations and participant fees, when the
towns couldn’t come up with the cash. Organic material for weekly
pickup means table and food scraps, including meat and bones; dairy
products; tea bags and coffee grounds; compostable paper, cardboard
and newsprint; organic kitty litter; and yard waste — soil, grass
clippings and weeds, no branches.

Clark is so committed to getting recycling and composting programs
working in the towns that she staffs a Recycling Hotline to answer
questions from residents about what they can recycle and compost. The
Hotline number is 978-468-5515 for both towns.

Buker School is one of the participants in the Curbside Composting
Program, as a pilot school. Clark credits residents Linda Mastrianni
and Kali Reynolds for setting the ball rolling by introducing
composting in their fourth-grade classes. Now, a few more classrooms
are joining and students are serving as "compost monitors" in the
cafeteria to make sure compostable items go in the right bin.

Britton has loaned the school two large bins for their organics, and
New England Solid Waste has added Buker to its Wednesday pickup. Buker
staff is applying for a grant from the Ed Fund to pay for 15 classroom
bins and for paper bag liners.

Hamilton-Wenham’s Curbside Compost program, the first of its kind in
New England and the only one operating on the entire East Coast, is
generating a lot of positive attention in the green community, with
articles about it appearing this year in Boston Magazine, The Boston
Globe, the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) Community Corner
and the Hamilton Wenham Chronicle.

In June, DEP presented Hamilton and Wenham with the Leaders in
Innovation award in recognition of their efforts to promote
composting, recycling and waste prevention. Gretel Clark has been
nominated by the MassRecycle as Recycler of the Year, in recognition
of her work in getting and keeping the program going; Britton has been
nominated for the Green Binnie award in the business category.
MassRecycle’s annual award program is on Nov. 17 this year, in
Boston.

Clark said she has been receiving calls from all over the state and
even the country, from municipal administrators, researchers and
environmental groups, all wanting to know how to set up a similar
program.

“There’s no magic bullet to getting started,” said Clark, “Just a
group of people who are committed to making the environment a better
place to live.”

Clark and Hamilton-Wenham Sustainability Coordinator Sue Patrolia had
much to say about the importance of recycling and composting — and the
difficulties with getting programs going. Patrolia cited an online
publication by Triple Pundit that the U.S. is only composting 3
percent of its food waste. According to that article, the issues to
increase composting are numerous.

Not many places actually take organic waste — “only 8 percent of the
3,400 commercial composting facilities across the country accept food
waste.” Those that do, may not accept the same material. There are no
standards for compostable packaging and labeling on the packaging is
non-existent.

However, the benefits of the program are also numerous. First, for
Wenham and Hamilton, the program removes about 500 pounds of kitchen
waste per household from trash collection, thus reducing trash
collection costs for each town. Clark said that Hiltz, the company
that collects solid waste in Hamilton and Wenham picks up an average
of 27 pounds of solid waste per household per week. Solid waste costs
$71 per ton to incinerate, so pulling out recyclable and compostable
material reduces collection and incineration costs.

Composting reduces solid waste for each household, which reduces
pollution and the household’s carbon footprint; composting enriches
soil. The Hamilton-Wenham programs supports community gardening by
keeping the compost local and giving back free compost for
participants. The MassDEP offers advice on composting for home
composters http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/compos01.htm, and
joined with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create the
WasteWise program, which also offers advice and assistance at mass.gov/
dep/recycle/reduce/wastewise.htm

Clark commented that most home composting is inert for the winter
months; however, the compost in the Hamilton-Wenham program is
actively managed all 12 months of the year.

Clark says that increasing membership is critical at this time, as
town administrators will be making decisions about the future of the
program as early as December: making it a town-wide program, even a
mandatory program, or continuing on a paid-by-participant basis.

Clark said she and the other residents running the program are working
the numbers already: another 75 members and the program breaks even,
another 200 members and the program becomes a possibility for town-
wide participation. More than 300 more participants would carry the
program through July and the start of the fiscal year for municipal
government. Sometime in December, the two Recycling Committees will be
looking at options for how the program is to be funded in the coming
year, including another grant from the DEP for partial funding.

In preparation for future planning, all current participants can
expect to receive a survey about their experience with the program.
“Very brief, only 10 questions,” said Clark, “With yes or no answers
and space for comments. You can complete it online, if you like.” She
hopes to get 100 percent response from participants.

Meanwhile, it is easy to sign up. This month, Wenham Eagle Scout
Thomas Grimshaw will be staffing information tables around town where
residents will have the opportunity to sign up. Similar opportunities
to sign up are available at each Town Hall, at the Hamilton-Wenham
Public Library and on each town web page, wenhamma.gov and
hamiltonma.gov

Those interested can call the trash hotline at 978-468-5515 or e-mail
hamilton...@yahoo.com or wenham_...@yahoo.com.

For organic waste pickup from October through the end of March, new
participants only pay $50 plus $29 for a counter top plastic bucket
and a 13-gallon curbside green barrel.

Peter Britton offers periodic tours of the compost site on Highland
Avenue and participants can always drop off their yard waste or pick
up compost by calling 978-468-3131.