LOCALadk Magazine

Opposite: (pictured from left to right) John Culpepper, Katie Culpepper, and Jennifer Perr y co-founded CfG in 2020. Above: CfG works across the northcountr y with various organizations. LOCALadk 39 Getting by with a little help from our friends As John looked towards retirement in 2019, he called a meeting with myself and Katie to consider how to more formally promote composting. We collec- tively agreed that forming our own not-for-profit was not what any of us wanted, so we turned to regional community advocacy group Adk Action. Then-Execu- tive Director Brittany Christianson and the late Tom Booth (a wonderful and inspiring human being who walked this earth with grace and dignity) took a spe- cial interest in our project, and we were soon adopted into their suite of projects in the honorable company of initiatives such as the Adirondack Pollinator Project and the Road Salt Initiative. The rest is history, as they say. Being under Ad- k Action's umbrella allowed our team to seek and implement grants, have access to a website and email accounts among other organizational structures needed to do the work we wanted to do, while being part of an incredible team. As our work has grown, we have recently been brought under the umbrella of the similarly missioned Adirondack North Country Associ- ation (ANCA) Local Food System Program to expand the range of services we offer. Without both of these organizations, we would not exist. Community-scale composting: What it is and how it works So what is so great about composting? To put a finer point on it, as Katie Culpepper insists, what is so great about community-scale composting? The answer is everything. Community-scale composting, as we define it, is anything between the backyard composting efforts to large, commercial efforts. We also see it as compost- ing systems that are as decentralized as possible while still optimizing the environmental conditions for the microbes that we carefully steward. The process of composting involves combin- ing feedstocks (organic materials) commonly known as browns (Carbon) and greens (Nitro- gen) with aeration and moisture to make a biologically robust end product. Food scraps are the most commonly recognized forms of organic materials, but one of CfG's missions is to expand the range of organic materials being composted. John and Katie are piloting a human urine composting facility at their site in Jay and to date have turned over 1,500 gallons of diverted urine into heaps of excellent com- post. Human bodies can be legally compost- ed in NYS — one of 12 states that now have organic reduction legislation in place. Animal mortalities, butcher waste, and animal ma- nures are also excellent feedstocks. The most common carbon source is wood chips. Howev- er, hay, straw, shredded paper, and wood pellets are excellent options as well. In many cases, most or all of these materials are readily available in our own back- yards. From trash to soil health: Turning waste into re- source Let's focus on food scraps, as we like to call them, which are also known as food waste. We have decided that "waste" is a dirty word as all waste really is a re- source under the right conditions. Food scraps, when buried in a landfill, generate greenhouse gas emis- sions and contribute to poor water quality. And with ~21% of all waste in landfills consisting of food scraps this decreases the active life of a landfill with limited capacity. A recent waste characterization study con- ducted at a local landfill estimated that 40% of their waste stream consisted of food scraps! And for every wasted scrap of food, there is also the wasted energy, water, and time that went into that food's production, distribution, preparation and consumption. Donation to pantries and farmers, menu planning, appropriate storage techniques, and appropriate por- tion size are all important first steps to reducing the amount of wasted food going to landfills. However some spoiled or inedible food is inevitable (think ba- nana peels, that orange that is hard as a rock when you crack it open or the strawberry package that slipped below the refrigerator shelf unseen). Composting these scraps before they end up in the garbage not only provides an opportunity to avoid landfill impacts, but it contributes to the generation of a microbial rich end product that is capable of mitigating yet another environmental challenge facing our planet - soil degra- dation. Soil degradation and soil loss is a crisis threatening communities across the planet, including in the United States where we are losing approximately 2 mm/year. This might not seem like much, but it is well above

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