Composting: One problem, multiple solutions

MILLERTON —  “There will never be a time when we hear, ‘Hey, sorry, we have no food waste for you,’” Matt Hamm averred, gesturing over the vast acreage at the McEnroe Organic Farm soils and compost facility. Hamm, who is the director of composting, estimated that $600 billion worth of food is wasted every year.

At the center of the McEnroe operation stands a kind of mountain range in miniature, a 30-foot pile of rich, garden-ready compost, or “black gold,” the end product of a roughly 18-month cycle, in what is a consciously circular process. The 1,200-acre farm, a 501(c)(3), uses much of the compost it makes for its own growing and selling, but has a clear and significant educational mission.

What’s the problem/hurry?

With most awareness going to recycling efforts, composting is often overlooked as a main driver of sustainability. But composting diverts food waste from landfills. Shocking as it may seem, 40% of food in the U.S. goes uneaten.

According to an NRDC document, that works out to 20 pounds of food per person every month, including various sources. In the western Hudson Valley, 15 tractor trailers filled with waste leave the waste facility in Kingston six days a week, heading to the landfill in western New York.

In the landfill, decomposing food waste produces methane gas, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Removing food waste from the landfill would equate to removing one-fifth of the cars in the U.S.

An exemplar in our back yard

McEnroe’s has been composting at Coleman Station Road since about 1987, when the McEnroe and Durst families set up the farm and in a step visionary for the time, to create organic compost.

“We’re permitted to do up to 15,000 cubic yards of food waste per year, and 55,000 cubic yards of total inputs,” Hamm explained. Much of it comes from New York City restaurants, and “micro-haulers” bring yard and farm waste from various municipalities and other local sources.

An 8-acre compost bed nearby is divided into windrows 8 feet high, 22 feet wide, and very long, where active composting happens.

“Thermophilic” composting refers to using heat, and heat-loving organisms, to decompose matter. Windrow covers keep the compost at proper levels of heat and moisture, principles that home composters will recognize as keys to success.

A temperature of 135-160 degrees Fahrenheit, turned five times in 15 days, assures that the material is cooked throughly. Drainage swales and collector areas keep the area moist but not sopping wet.

Nuisance rodents or vermin are dispatched by the countryside predators: hawks, eagles and coyotes are the natural pest-control solution in the vast McEnroe campus.

Surprisingly, odor is not very evident in most conditions, and certain smells, like ammonic ones during anaerobic decomposition, act as “time to turn” signals. As to effects on nearby residents, “We have wind socks to show wind direction, since we want to be as mindful as possible of our neighbors.”

But the process’ recipe is so well-honed, he added, that those working in the office just adjacent to the huge pad leave the windows open.

Sad contamination, here as everywhere

A giant pile on the other side represents what any large-scale composter, or any steward of nature, faces: shockingly large numbers of plastic bags and other waste. Next to the huge open-air “screening plant,” the pile bristles with plastics amid its half-composted soil.

“This is a real problem, one that we all have to deal with,” Hamm said, “and we don’t see what we’ve done to our planet until we see these processes. With composting, you’re talking about carbon sequestration, and ensuring soil health for generations to come…just taking a bit of time out of your year to make compost happen is really a step toward saving the planet for future generations.”

The foresight of the farm’s owners, the McEnroe and Durst families, before ‘organic’ was a byword, ensure that this efficient, closed-loop operation can extend well into the future. Tours of the facility will be available to the public on Saturday, May 13.

What can each of us do?

For DIFM (do-it-for-me) methods, contributing to McEnroe’s drop-off bin on the south end of its Route 22 store’s parking lot is one easy way for some people to make sure their food waste doesn’t become part of the problem. “We’re about to rebuild the steps into a deck to make it easier to dump food scraps,” said McEnroe farm store manager Olivia Skeen.

While the large-scale, carefully engineered process allows for materials usually forbidden in home systems—meats, fish, dairy, cooked foods—and pretty much anything that spoils at home can be added to the small dumpster, she noted, they’d rather not have yard waste because of its bulkiness; that can go down Coleman Station Road to the main facility.

Skeen pointed out that the farm’s nonprofit status will be highlighted in many community activities and fundraising. The Education Garden is a small-scale display of everything that is done on the farm, a safe way to introduce processes to the public without stressing young greenhouse plants too much.

The DIY route

In terms of individual, household,or even neighborhood composting, there are several choices. People who have a fair bit of property may prefer the “lazy composting” method, consisting of two or three separate piles at a distance from the house—one onto which fresh food scraps (“green” elements, in compost lingo) are thrown, then covered with leaves or such other “brown/carbon” layers to balance what is needed for decomposition; the other pile is the result of that process, further on. That or a third pile is used as needed.

As a vegetarian, Rich Stalzer of Millerton finds the open-piles system works fine for him. “When I do have meat scraps from feeding guests or their pets,” he added, “they either take their scraps home [New York City has curbside composting] or I freeze them until I make a trip down 22 and drop them off at McEnroe.”

Perhaps because of the limited inputs, he finds few issues with odor or animals.

For a three-part system that is definitely not “lazy,” a look at Eliot Ramos’ and Nuno Ramos’ system at their home in Millerton village is instructive. Built of wooden planks from pallets, the first bin holds scraps, yard waste and large pieces of branches, twigs and so on.

In the second bin, similar but older material is finer in consistency but still not soil. The third bin holds what looks like rich dark soil: completed compost. Nuno turns each bin out onto the ground every two weeks or so, advances the parts that are ready, and adds to the first bin.

Don’t provide buffet for local wildlife

A common problem for home composters (and gardeners in general) is the presence of animals, who find our fresh greens irresistible. The Ramos’ bins are protected by rope-mesh covers that can keep squirrels out, and probably discourage other animals. Without animal products and their odors, larger animals are not attracted to the piles.

For bin-style composters like the Earth Machine, currently on sale by Dutchess County for about one-third of the list price, the trick may be to place the bottomless bin on a layer of metal mesh with small enough openings to deter mice—probably 1/4 inch to be safe, since those creatures are experts at self-compression, fitting into holes the size of dimes.

Extend the protection well beyond the object, and possibly vertically into the surrounding soil as well, in the case of a serious population issue. Attention to the size of food bits (the smaller the better), moisture, turning the mixture, and locating it where it can absorb and maintain warmth will ensure maintaining the proper conditions for decomposition and minimize unwanted results.

Conventional wisdom, updated warnings

Home gardeners have been told for ages to beware of composting weeds, especially invasive and those that have already seeded. Garlic mustard, for example, should be cut before it flowers, because seeding happens soon after that. And many home composters never reach the ideal temperatures as noted above.

But newer learning suggests that there is no good way to compost a garlic mustard plant (which is prohibited in New York state), since its roots exude allelopathic anti-fungal substances. Those cause disturbances in relations between mycorrhizal fungi, trees and “good” plants, a link recently shown to be crucial to the entire ecosystem.

In addition, it is one of several plants, including sunflowers, that absorb lead in the soil. The upside of that is their use in phytoremediation of brownfields and so on, but it’s yet another reason to keep them out of composting systems.

Another plant to avoid composting, if one is unlucky enough to encounter it, is Japanese knotweed, a bamboo lookalike whose root systems can destroy foundations, septic tanks and other materials usually thought to be indestructible. Both of those invasive nasties should be bagged, marked, left to dry and lighten in weight, then disposed of, but so carefully that instructions are reminiscent of toxic or radioactive waste management.

Challenges and hopes

As helpful as it can be for the environment, for some people, the challenges of composting at home are too great, considering space, time, equipment and so on.

In Nuno Ramos’ community composting idea, a blend of DIY and DIFM, bins for food scraps would be located at community homes that have the space and system to compost them; neighbors would bring their scraps, the owner of the bin would maintain the system, and all would share the compost that results. Worth noting: No animal fat is used at such a scale of composting.

He also posited a small-business aspect: “Small-scale local entrepreneurs [would] collect food scraps – from residences, restaurants, grocery stores, breweries, coffee shops and other sites – by bicycle, trailer, or truck and transport material to a nearby composting operation.” This might be part of the town government, using state and federal grant monies to help set up and support pilot programs.

“It’s something we need to figure out,” Ramos said. “Even though New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut are close by, we all compost differently;” in states that accept all food, including meat and dairy, the systems tend to be on an industrial scale, and dependent on fossil fuels.

But local composting can be modestly scaled and more sustainable, using what is on hand and avoiding long-haul transport. “There are many opportunities. If we work together as a community, Millerton could be the first community in New York with a truly local, sustainable composting solution.”

McEnroe’s food waste drop-off:-- www.-mcenroeorganicfarm.com--/programs/compost-drop-off

Japanese knotweed ID, disposal  info: warren.cce.cornell.edu/gardening-landscape/-warren-county-master-gardener-articles/japanese-knotweed

Reasonably-priced compost bins:

dutchessny.gov/DutchessCountyOnlinePurchases/WasteManagement/-PurchaseCompostBins

  

Nuno Ramos, left, and Eliot Ramos in front of the three-part composting system at their home in the village of Millerton. Photo by Deborah Maier