Composting Resources – Search Results
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Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide: Synergies and Opportunities
This Healthy Soils and Compost Policy Guide is designed for advocates, policymakers, and curious minds to explore a menu of policy avenues to address the critical need to both build soil health and divert organic materials from disposal via compost.… Read More
A Growing Movement: 2022 Community Composter Census
A Growing Movement: 2022 Community Composter Census is the first census of the community composting sector. With more than 50 figures and graphics, the report highlights the sector’s diversity of geographic and demographic representation, composting methods, composting feedstocks and output, employment, and community impact.… Read More
Oh, Rats! How to Avoid Rodents at Community Composting Sites
Contrary to popular belief, composting in cities does not cause rodent problems. This guide shows how composting food scraps, instead of dumping them in the trash, has the power to mitigate rodent pressures in urban neighborhoods.… Read More
Report: Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste
ILSR worked with Zero Waste Associates to co-author Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste. The plan provides a step by step guide to transitioning the city away from incineration and toward recycling, composting and reuse, which will expand the economy by 1,800 jobs within two years. … Read More
Community Composting Done Right: A Guide to Best Management Practices
Community Composting Done Right: A Guide to Best Management Practices is designed to support community-scale composters in successfully managing their composting process and site, with a particular focus on sites accepting food scraps. … Read More
ILSR Guide to Composting Onsite at Schools
ILSR prepared this Guide to Composting Onsite at Schools to introduce the basics of onsite composting at K-12 schools that have been equipped with 2- and 3-bin composting systems. … Read More
Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Government
The report, Yes! In My Backyard: A Home Composting Guide for Local Governments, profiles 11 home composting programs (10 in the United States, 1 in Canada) and is a guide for local governments starting their own programs. It makes the case that home composting should be a central component of every community’s residential food waste reduction strategy. The guide is not intended as a manual on how to compost at home.… Read More
Survey of Residential Food Waste Collection Access in the U.S.
A new report released by BioCycle — with research led by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance — details the growth of residential access to food scrap collection services, both through curbside and drop-off programs. Food scrap recovery is increasingly recognized as a key to reaching high waste diversion levels, protecting the climate, and feeding the soil.… Read More
Bike-Powered Food Scrap Collection
As part of ILSR’s collaboration with the Chesapeake Youth Development Center to launch a bike-powered food scrap collection service in Curtis Bay, a neighborhood of Baltimore, ILSR interviewed 17 owners and founders of bike-powered collection services in 11 states. Read our article, Bike Powered Food Scraps Collection in the January 2017 issue of BioCycle Magazine. … Read More
Size Matters! New Report Shows The Value of Small-Scale, Community-Based Composting
Composting can take place at many levels – backyard, block, neighborhood, schoolyard, community, on-farm, and regional – and in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Composting at the local level circulates dollars in the community, promotes social inclusion and empowerment, greens neighborhoods, builds healthy soils, supports local food production and food security, embeds a culture of composting … Read More
Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting
ILSR’s July 2014 report, Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting, describes successful initiatives, their benefits, tips for replication, key start-up steps, and the need for private, public, and nonprofit sector support. Produced in collaboration with the Highfields Center for Composting in Hardwick, Vermont, Growing Local Fertility profiles 31 model programs in 14 states and … Read More
State of Composting in the US: What, Why, Where & How
State of Composting in the U.S., published in July 2014, is the first comprehensive review of composting basics, national and state statistics, job generation data, model programs, and policy opportunities. The report calls for a national soils strategy and for new rules and programs to grow composting, especially at the local community level: streamlined permitting for … Read More
Composting Builds Healthy Soils and Protects Watersheds, Says New ILSR Report
A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Composting Makes $en$e Project documents the importance of expanded composting and compost use to enhance soils, protect watersheds, reduce waste, and create green jobs and a new made-in-America industrial sector. Building Healthy Soils with Compost to Protect Watersheds This 12-page report highlights the importance of organic matter to … Read More
Composting Supports Jobs and Healthy Watersheds, Say New ILSR Reports
Two new reports from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Composting Makes $en$e Project document the importance of expanded composting and compost use to enhance soils, protect watersheds, reduce waste, and create green jobs and a new made-in-America industrial sector. For press release, click here. With compostable material making up almost one-half of municipal solid waste, there is … Read More
Composting Makes $en$e: Jobs through Composting & Compost Use
Recycling is an economic development tool as well as an environmental tool. Reuse, recycling, and waste reduction offer direct development opportunities for communities. When collected with skill and care, and upgraded with quality in mind, discarded materials are a local resource that can contribute to local revenue, job creation, business expansion, and the local economic base.… Read More