Cascade Compost

We are a community-driven system committed to turning food waste to compost, within the boundaries of our own neighborhood to thus be a working example of a sustainable project that greatly reduces waste sent to landfills, and our reliance of fossil fuels. This is the Cascade Compost Mission.

To follow is an excerpt of the text that was brought together to apply for a City of Seattle neighborhood matching funds grant; It gives an idea of the scope of this community project.

We are a group of community members who have come to the table to visualize a neighborhood composting system where residents, businesses and local schools can participate, as a community, in the process of composting. Through the process of envisioning, we realized the potential of this project, and with a bit of fundraising, we could actually see this happen!

Our goal to see this project get underway is to purchase and install two commercial grade “Earth Tub” composters from Green Mountain Technologies. The Earth Tub can handle 40lbs to 500lbs of food waste per day and turn it into healthy, nutrient rich soil to use on the neighborhood gardens, the neighborhood P-Patch (community veggie garden), Garden of Happiness and the Urban Farm Project. Neighbors will bring their food waste to the Earth Tub and actively engage in processing it into soil. We also intend to reduce local carbon emissions by using bikes and pedestrians to collect and deliver the food waste and compost.

Cascade Compost will serve as a pilot project for other communities to observe and model, as it will be the first one of its kind in the city. Our work in this endeavor will continue to be documented to share the lessons of this process with communities, businesses, residents and schools.

The goals of this project are to:

1. Create fresh compost for community gardening.

2. Bring together a community that creates solutions and acts upon them in sustainable ways.

3. Eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the transportation and disposal of food waste

4. Provide a model of zero carbon self-sufficiency that the community can learn from and build upon.
5. Educate ourselves and future generations about the importance of community stewardship.

Cascade Compost will be located at the Cascade People’s Center where approximately 80 kids are involved in after school programs, summer camps and other enrichment activities. The compost project will be integrated into the environmental curriculum that is already happening at the Center. Additionally, CPC is creating an environmental classroom where kids and adults from around the region will learn about the principles of sustainability just by being in the space. Other schools, located in the neighborhood will be participating in the project and learning about how they can reduce their carbon footprint by composting their food waste locally.

The compost system relies on the formation of working relationships and long-term collaboration between community members to be sustainable.

The first element of this project that will build community is the simple and direct social interaction through through its physical location, nestled between The Cascade park, Urban Farm Project, P-patch and the Cascade People’s Center. Being centrally located in the neighborhood, the system will be highly visible and allow for easy access to the project by residents and other neighborhood stakeholders. The P-patch, Giving Garden and Urban Farm Project currently have approximately 60 gardeners. The Cascade Park and Playground is a natural meeting place for people of all ages. The Cascade People’s Center is host to many community driven programs and in the year 2006 had a total of 6,564 visits. Expanding the geographic circle around the site, within a 2 block radius, there are 9 residential apartment complexes, and, of the businesses with in this radius, 7 are currently committed to the project. Neighbors from all of these sectors will be encouraged to engage in the process of maintaining and feeding the compost system, as well as taking part in the educational workshops that will be offered.

The second community-building element of the project is the educational component. This will include trainings and workshops with a curriculum focusing both on the day to day running of the compost system, as well as the impact the project will have, through widespread community involvement, on the reduction of food waste being sent to landfills. The compost system will also serve as a model for other communities interested in starting similar projects, and will facilitate connections between those communities.

The third community-building element of this project is the process of running the compost system itself. In order to feed and maintain the system all sectors of the neighborhood will have to come together to complete the entire process of composting from the first step of collecting the food waste to the last step of using the resulting soil. The process cannot be completed and sustained by one person or organization, but requires a broad community collaboration to succeed. Establishing and building upon the working relationships required to sustain the composting process will encourage neighborhood cohesion and strengthen community ties.

Through this project, awareness of food waste disposal systems will be increased through the education and training components. Direct participation in the composting process will also increase awareness of the effect of the participant’s actions on waste systems both on an individual and community-wide scale.

There will also be a physical reduction of waste sent to the landfill from the neighborhood. Soil generated from the community’s food waste will then be utilized in community gardens, the Cascade Park, and neighborhood residences.

This project will bring people from different sectors in the community together and build relationships through working towards a unifying and productive goal. Engaging in the composting process will encourage, in a tangible sense, shared stewardship and ownership of the neighborhood, and will foster a greater investment in the community in general.

Through active participation within the socially and economically diverse Cascade Community and, with open communication to surrounding neighborhoods, we will address our individual and collective participation in unsustainable food waste disposal and regional distribution systems. Individual and group experiential knowledge and a strong desire to effect change locally is the impetus to come together designing and putting into action an Urban Composting System that will begin to reduce our impact on landfills at a community scale.

This project gives the Cascade community an opportunity to see first-hand how composting food waste can decrease the amount of garbage sent to landfills. Also, the project demonstrates how, through localization of resources, we can reduce the use of fossil fuels, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, our bike / pedestrian distribution will be a healthy alternative to the internal combustion engine and will be a compelling brand for the project. We will tally the inputs / outputs of material and mileage of distribution to quantify reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

We will summarize and share through documentation, demonstration and harvest:

Documentation: we will keep detailed records of community participation, maintenance of systems, input and output levels, as well the rough and smooth spots of the process.

Demonstration: Through a series of ongoing ‘community to community’ workshops, Cascade Compost will share experiential knowledge with other communities interested in exploring ways to reduce their local carbon footprint. The Composting Center will invite local and regional schools to take part in focused workshops for students of all ages. The composting project will also tie in with the curriculum of the Eco-Center, enriching each participant’s eco-educational experience. Through an ongoing dialog with friends and associates tied with other communities, we will inspire by doing, thus encouraging a ripple effect. We hope to bring an awareness of the basic facts of food waste generated: an average of 6lbs of food waste per week is added to our landfills, based on a household of four. This equates to 288lbs per year. In a community of 6000 people, 216 tons of food waste is generated in a year. Composting centers such as this would greatly reduce the impact on our landfills.

Harvest: The byproduct of these systems is a nutrient rich soil that will be shared with community members. Any surplus will be offered to folks outside the community for a fee, and this will help to offset costs for the maintenance of the system.

There are currently 9 community members on the steering committee, 30 neighborhood stakeholders, (residents and business’ ) committed to maintaining the system, once it is up and running, We anticipate these numbers to increase as the project becomes more visibly a working part of the neighborhood.

This project is open to anyone who wishes to be involved.

I’m excited for the potential of this project as it is realized, the potential to dialog and share experiential knowledge with others who are actively engaged in community systems such as this, as well communities who are interested in designing systems to integrate into their communities. This sharing of knowledge has no boundaries, as their is community action such as this happening all over the world.

Wild Synergy!

~ by linda on October 13, 2007.