Philadelphians dump 400,000 tons of food and yard scraps into the landfill every year. A city community composting pilot is working to put that waste to good use.
Katherine Rapin reports for The Philadelphia Citizen
On a recent Saturday at the Carousel House community garden in Fairmount Park, a huddle assembled around a massive plywood box full of food scraps. “If it’s bigger than my hand—like five inches—chop it,” says the enthusiastic composting instructor, holding up her gloved hand. “And put big signs up so people don’t leave stuff outside the bin.” The sea of colorful knit hats nodded.
These folks represent 11 community gardens, urban farms, and schools across the city; they are the pioneers of Philadelphia’s pilot Community Composting Network who will help their neighborhoods turn organic waste into nutrient-rich plant food.
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Funded by grants from Comcast and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the program is headed up by the city’s Office of Sustainability and Department of Parks and Recreation. They provide the 12x4x4-foot, three-compartment compost bin, training and ongoing support for each site as it gets set up.
The idea is this: neighbors bring their food and yard scraps to a nearby site and share the responsibility of turning the piles and maintaining the bin. The resulting fertilizer is available to all participants for use in garden beds, window boxes, potted plants at home, or even trees lining streets nearby.
The city’s review committee last week announced the pilot sites from 22 applications submitted over the summer. These first composters, like Greensgrow Farm, Brewerytown Garden, and Urban Tree Connection, have well-established neighborhood networks.
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