Government Support for Community Composting Webinar Series

  • Nov 18, 2022
  • Brenda Platt, Sophia Jones
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  • Presentations & Events
  • Composting for Community
  • Climate and Environmental Justice
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    Are you a local government interested in reducing and recycling wasted food and curious to learn how you can help spur community-scale composting? Or perhaps you are a community-oriented composter or micro hauler searching for public-private partnerships. This webinar series is for you!

    In this series you will learn how cities are providing community-scale composting with a wide range of support including:

    • Establishing community composting at urban gardens,
    • Training community members on how to compost successfully,
    • Funding equipment for small sites,
    • Funding staff at existing nonprofit organizations,
    • Incorporating community composting into climate action strategies and other plans,
    • Granting access to land, and 
    • Awarding major contracts for curbside and drop-off food scraps collection.

    This webinar series, together with our broader library of composting-related webinar recordings, is one way ILSR supports the growth of a distributed and diverse composting infrastructure that includes community-scale and on-farm systems. Explore our other composting-related webinar recordings.

    Series Collection

  • May 4th, 2022

    The NYC Compost Project, created in 1993 by the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY), works to rebuild NYC’s soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to produce and use compost locally. Hear from representatives from DSNY as well as two partner organizations including Big Reuse and LES Ecology Center.

    Presenters:

    • Debra Sheintoch, Director of Compost Programs and Partnerships, NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY)
    • Renee Crowley, Deputy Director, Lower East Side Ecology Center
    • Devin Reitsma, Project Manager, The New York City Compost Project Hosted by Big Reuse

    Access the recording

  • June 8th, 2022 

    Micro haulers and community-scale composters need government support to sustain their business models. Listen to this webinar to hear directly from food scrap collectors and composters who have secured some type of private-public partnership. If you represent local government, this webinar will also cover how you can directly support local food scrap recovery businesses.

    Presenters:

    • Jeremy Brosowsky, Compost Cab
    • Ben Parry, Compost Crew
    • Justen Garrity, Veteran Compost
    • Eileen Banyra, Community Compost Co.
    • Andrew Brousseau, Black Earth Compost

    Access the recording

  • June 23rd, 2022

    Listen to this webinar to hear from select jurisdictions which are providing a wide range of support for community-scale composting activities, from building concrete pads under 3-bin systems and granting right of entries to urban parks to awarding RFPs for new compost sites.

    Presenters:

    • Krista Kuehnhackl, Sustainability Coordinator, County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability, California
    • Ash Richards, Director of Urban Agriculture, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Pennsylvania
    • Luisa Robles, Recycling Coordinator, Public Works, Greenbelt, Maryland
    • Sonny Von Tiedemann, Recycling Specialist, Department of General Services, City of Albany, New York
    • Adam Michaelides, Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County, New York

    Access the recording

  • October 27th, 2022

    Tune into this webinar to explore a range of ways that urban, suburban, and rural governments — from San Diego County to rural Vermont to Albany, New York — are supporting on-farm and community composting.

    Presenters:

    • Tyler Farmer, Planning Manager, Sustainability Planning Division, San Diego County 
    • Jessica Toth, Executive Director, Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, San Diego
    • Lisa Liotta, General Manager, Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District, Vermont
    • Scott Kellogg, Educational Director, The Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, Albany, New York)

    Access the recording

  • April 19th, 2023

    In this webinar, Sashti Balasundaram, Founder of WeRadiate, shares case studies from Western New York – the City of Buffalo, Town of Amherst, and Erie County – in which local community composters and volunteers advocate and work alongside elected officials to bring forth change.

    Presenters:

    • Sashti Balasundaram, Founder, WeRadiate, New York
    • John Szalasny, Chair, Recycling and Waste Citizens Advisory Committee, Town of Amherst, New York
    • Gary Carrel, Solid Waste Recycling Specialist, Environment & Planning, Erie County, New York
    • Danielle Rovillo, Project Coordinator, Department of Health, Office of Health Equity, Erie County, New York

    Access the recording

  • June 22nd, 2023

    This webinar highlights ILSR’s recent report, A Growing Movement: 2022 Community Composter Census, which is the first census of community composters to track the nature and growth of this sector, identify its key challenges, and demonstrate its benefits. 

    Presenter & Panelists:

    • Clarissa Libertelli, Coordinator, Community Composter Coalition, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
    • Kourtnii Brown, Co-Founder, California Alliance of Community Composting
    • Sophia Hosain, Zero Waste Manager, Baltimore City Department of Public Works
    • Sandy Briggs, Sustainability Program Manager, City of Boulder Climate Initiatives
    • J. Olu Baiyewu, Urban Agriculture Director, City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience
    • Caroline Vance, Capital, Innovation, & Engagement Director, ReFED

    Access the recording

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