Prosperity for Rhode Island

Greg Gerritt  Compost 12/19/09

Compost, the product of the transformation of organic matter into the something a bit magical that renews the world has always been of critical importance on the planet.  Humans have had a special interest in compost once they began practicing agriculture, and the communities that were  better able to  manage well the process of replenishing the soil were able to thrive better than those who watched their soil erode and fertility fade.

The hilly country of New England is a place that lost much of its top soil and fertility in its agricultural heyday. In the big oil age of agriculture Southern New England returned to forest and regained some fertility.  Now we reach the crossroads of climate change.  A place of great danger.  Might be time for us to stop wasting our organic matter and focus a bit  more on the nearly miraculous substance that renews the planet, compost.

The Providence Urban Agriculture Task Force is centered by the Southside Community Land Trust, and as a small part of the overall project to increase the number of people growing and the amount  of food grown in our neighborhood there is a partnership with the Environment Council of Rhode Island Education Fund to pursue the idea of  turning all of the food waste in the community into compost so that it could be returned  to the soil and our neighborhood could grow more of its own food.  Buying and transporting compost for community gardens is getting to be a big chore and an increasingly expensive one, so we started thinking more about the local potential for compost.  We think holistically about our community and how this work fits, including the need to reduce waste going to the Central Landfill and the expansion of recycling efforts in communities throughout Rhode Island in recent years.

The initial strategy was to start a conversation about compost in the community beyond the usual suspects and to raise the idea that composting all of our compostables for return to the soil was doable and would benefit to the community.  This work coincided with the ever deepening recession, a recession I believe is at least partly the result of ecological collapse, so while transitioning my focus more towards compost than other aspects of the Green economy  I was talking to people at organizations like the Small Business Administration about the economic problems and how compost might be a part of the solution. Talking to folks beyond the usual suspects during the transition from previous projects confirmed the view that this is an idea who’s time has come.  Often my conversation partners were not quite ready to commit to wholesale ecological restoration as the panacea for what ails us, but they could see real advantages in their world if composting became part of the fabric of the community.

The Urban Agriculture Task Force does not have the the ability to transform the management of waste in Rhode Island on its own.  The only way this transformation is possible is if all of the potential partners, all of the organizations that deal with our waste stream, realize composting is in the best interest of the community and economically feasible.  Therefore a key strategy of the project has been to build relationships and share the vision with those who actually collect, process, and manage waste as well ass those who produce large amounts of compostables.

Early on conversation and research was focused on collection and separation issues.  A variety of communities around the country are collecting organic materials and composting,  and every day more communities are waking up to their need to compost rather than bury their organic materials.  Given our current state of affairs, our need to repair ecosystems and farmlands, the need for compost is essentially infinite. I thought the most difficult issue might be collection, but within a few months it was obvious that collection could be managed.  San Francisco and other large cities have instituted a mandatory 3 bin system for collection of trash, recyclables, and compostables.  We in Rhode island have the professionals and contractors who can do this as well.  Shake outs can be hard, but it only takes a few weeks for everyone to get with the program once a community institutes collecting in a new way.  Other communities are using bicycles with wagons to collect compost.  Providence will see a neighborhood bicycle collection program in the West End in 2010 with the compostables being composted at a community garden.

The Public agencies, especially the City of Providence and the RI Resource Recovery Corporation have been an important source of support throughout this endeavor.  DEM has been helpful recently providing much good advice. Conversations at the Farm Fresh RI conference got me thinking very hard about the role of institutions, restaurants, and other concentrated food sources in this overall system.  I held several meetings with food service and environmental staff from 4 of the colleges in the city and their support has been much appreciated. Businesses like Converted Organics and Waste Management Incorporated  and several local restaurateurs have been helpful and supportive. I started pondering the idea that there is not just one solution, that we may need to tailor various aspects of a compost system to various parts of the community.  For instance we would NEVER discourage home composting even as we developed collection systems and larger scale composting operations.

Early on I became aware that Converted Organics was considering  expanding into Johnston RI with one of their commercial in vessel composting systems with a business model of focusing on commercial food waste streams.  I had some conversations with employees of the company and learned much that helped me appreciate more of the possibilities. I spend some time pondering what type of compost facility was most appropriate, ( with my limited typology consisting of long windrows of compostables such as is done at Earth Care Farm and In Vessel industrial style composting along the lines of Converted Organics). Then I progressed to what type of facilities would be most appropriate, and how would they best be scattered through the land if we were to create the most efficient system. I have no answer to this, nor can I answer it.  Only we can answer it.

I took the master composters class from URI.  I started giving workshops on the need to get all the food waste out of the waste stream and the need for and use of compost in the next economy.  I was hoping to bring everyone here together earlier, but with the City of Providence rolling out Green Up, its mandatory recycling program, it was prudent to wait a bit.

About this time Katherine Brown directed my attention to Bruce Fulford and BioEnergy Farms.  The combination of compost facility, methane collection system, electric power plant, and greenhouse or something like that seems to be a reasonable model of where to move to more in depth study.  It seems to fit in with being in a densely populated urban core, the kind of thing we could build to fit different situations in our community.

Green Up had a bit of a rocky start, but is rolling now, with recycling in the city nearly doubled.  We have had more time to expand the network and see other communities across the country move towards compost.  We are reaching the time to put our thoughts and resources together , to find a way to work together to produce something that will  immediately benefit our community economically and ecologically and help build our resilience for the changes ahead.
I am hoping that everyone who attends on January 15 when the Providence Compost Stakeholders Convening takes place is committed to moving forward and together creating a plan and putting it into action.

Today i was reading about how small farmers are a big part of any carbon reduction strategy that is likely to work.  Recently I read about carbon sequestration and organic farming.  Every time we turn around another city has adopted mandatory recycling, compostable collection, or some similar program.  And more and more of them are tied to returning the compost to local farm land to rebuild fertility so that more food can be grown locally, stimulating the local economy and reducing our carbon footprint.

Now we just have to get everyone on board and develop a plan in Rhode Island.  The goal is to use the stakeholder convening on jan 15, 2010 to begin that process.  We want to see who is really interested and who might have resources to bring to the table.

Back when I began looking at this issue I thought the hard part would be to develop a collection system.  I now believe that is totally doable, and now I believe the key factor will be to determine what type of facility or facilities to develop and then figure out how to find the money, find the partners, find the investors.

I am beginning a series of writings relating to the Providence Compost Stakeholders Convening that will take place on January 15 2010.  As a way of getting myself clear on this and what needs to be done, blogging seems a useful tool.

It is pretty exciting, lots of people have already signed up, 48 hours after the invitations have gone out.  I am more worried about a sell out/SRO crowd than an empty room.  I invited the politicians today.  Figured i better do that before it got too late.   I signed the letter going out with the salutory of Life is Round.  Jack DeJonette   Thank you.

My evolution on the issue over the year is interesting, and I am very glad I have stuck to my intent to allow the project to ripen.  This week the big story is that organic agriculture is a good way to shrink our carbon footprints, for the same reasons some of us have been talking about for 40 years.  Healing ecosystems always has a more generalized effect than just at the locale the healing takes place.  And in this case weaving the strands is exactly what is needed.  We were always about compost for gardens, it is just everyone is acknowledging that it is important, whereas a year ago they sort of got it, but it was not front page news.

From beginning thinking mostly about collection systems, these days I am mostly thinking about the creation of a facility for composting, or rather a series of them around the state to reduce transportation of both compostables and compost going back to the land. Thinking about it in a global warming context, an agricultural context, as well as a collection and processing context.

More soon.

Greg Gerritt  12/7/09

The Copenhagen climate conference is this week.  They diddle and fiddle while Earth burns.  They deny, but that is mostly because they are unwilling to give up the oil drug that gives them so much power and control.   750 US military bases around the world.   Most situated to protect access to oil.  Short term thinking, just like a corporate charter.  Just like a document predicated on inequality.

Maybe there will be a forest protection agreement.  I am a true believer in reforestation, but I can not get excited.  Unless we come to see how important the world forest is in any actual restoration of climate plan, heck, any future plan for a livable planet, we are going to pretend to protect.  Just like we pretend about so many issues where the change is really only accomplished by a restoration of community power and an end to the coercion state. Only where governments and the rich can not violently threaten forest communities can we actually protect forests.  With unequal power we get pseudo forests and plantations, Not a forest that actually brings life back, or sequesters carbon as well.

That is what they  are most optimistic about.  For the rest expect nothing.  There is never an expectation of less.  Never an expectation that we shall respect the limits of the earth, that human greed has limits.  Zomia tells us that there are people who respect limits, but the low land civilizations always want MORE.  No wonder the US is willing to kill Mountain People for the oil, they might just let it sit in the ground rather than feed our war machine.  They must be fanatics.

And just think, then the US would not be able to support the 750 bases (support on borrowed money) that we use to protect all these places that do not want our protection for their oil .

Is it any wonder that Copenhagen is not looking good.  Stopping global warming means stopping the war machine, and the powerful are not ready to give that up.

o

I heard it on the radio again today. Concern that the median price of housing is going down.  Sales are up they say cheerfully, but prices are down they say glumly.  What they fail to get is that house prices are still too high, and that prices need to come down a lot so that people will actually be able to afford housing, and afford to live in it and invest in making it greener.

We got ourselves into this big mess or a recession partly due to over use of natural resources, leading to ecosystem collapse, and partly due to the pumping up of housing prices as a way to create yet more wealth for Wall St when there  was nothing else they could do, partly due to ecosystem collapse.  House prices could be manipulated, the entire housing market could be manipulated, and folks were taught that house prices will rise forever, so buy NOW, even if you can not afford it, you can always refinance later, borrow against the ever rising value of the house, etc etc.  The whole bill of goods.

This effort to raise house prices just feeds back into the Wall St craziness.  The speed up of society to make up for the loss of community. The need to keep feeding growth so past debts can be repaid.

But the reality is that most Americans can not afford decent housing under these conditions.  They pay prices that put everything at risk only because the alternative is sleeping under a bridge.  It is time for the news media to realize the propaganda they are being fed and to understand that only if house prices continue to sink shall we be able to put our nation’s house in order and match economy and ecology properly.  If we continue to create monetary value that is unshackled from the real economy, we continue our downward spiral of ecological collapse followed by greater poverty.