Government Support for Community Composting Part 4: A Menu of Options – Zoning, Grants, and Contracts

In Part 4 of our Serie de seminarios web sobre el apoyo gubernamental al compostaje comunitario, you will hear a menu of options on how urban, rural, and suburban governments are supporting on-farm and community composting. San Diego County has changed its zoning to facilitate decentralized composting sites. Many jurisdictions in the San Diego region have contracted with the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, resulting in the spread of on-farm and other local composting. Across the country in rural Vermont, the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District has seeded Neighborhood Compost Pods in collaboration with a local town and local farmer. And in an urban city, under contract with the City of Albany, an urban ecojustice and ecological literacy nonprofit is composting food scraps to regenerate urban soils.

This live webinar took place on: October 27th, 2022

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Este seminario web es uno de los una serie El Instituto para la Autosuficiencia Local ofrece apoyo a una infraestructura de compostaje distribuida y diversa que incluye el compostaje a escala comunitaria y en granjas. Para ver y escuchar nuestra biblioteca de grabaciones de seminarios web anteriores relacionados con el compostaje, haga clic aquí. AQUÍ.

PRESENTADORES

Tyler Farmer – Planning Manager San Diego County Sustainability Planning Division (California) Tyler Farmer is a Program Manager with the Sustainability Planning Division of Planning & Development Services in San Diego County. Tyler will talk about how San Diego County has changed its zoning to facilitate decentralized composting and to leverage interest in on-farm composting and new commercial opportunities.

Jessica Toth – Executive Director Solana Center for Environmental Innovation (San Diego, California)As executive director, Jessica Toth oversees daily operations and management at the nonprofit Solana Center. Solana Center established curbside recycling in southern California and now fosters environmental change through education and consulting. Jessica will share developments in policy in San Diego and greater California that have removed hindrances to local composting. She will also touch on how multiple jurisdictions have funded the Solana Center’s composting outreach and education, compost demonstration sites, manure management, and other initiatives. Jessica holds a Master’s degree from MIT in Business and a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell in Engineering. She also completed UCSD Extension’s certificate program in Sustainable Business Practices. She has received many awards for environmental leadership: San Diego Business Journal’s 50 Over 50 Women of Influence in San Diego (2022) and the US Composting Council’s Leadership in Outstanding Service (2019), to name just two.

Lisa Liotta – General Manager Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District (Vermont) Lisa Liotta joined the District in 2019. She has an Associates degree in accounting and business administration, and in 2016, earned an Associates degree in Environmental Science from the Community College of Vermont, followed by a Bachelors in 2018 from the University of Vermont in Environmental Studies. Lisa will talk about how a grant from CVSWMD helped launch Neighborhood Composting Pods, a new residential food scrap collection option for neighborhoods in the City of Hardwick. A Pod is a group of subscribing neighbors who separate their food scraps from non-food materials and collaborate to aggregate their food scraps in one location so they can be composted at a local farm, Black Dirt Farm.

 Scott Kellogg – Educational Director
The Radix Ecological Sustainability Center (Albany, New York)Scott Kellogg is the Educational Director of the Radix Center, an urban ecojustice and ecological literacy non-profit in Albany, NY, that advocates for just urban transitions. For the past 12 years, Radix has operated a community composting initiative that promotes composting as a decentralized and democratic process that can regenerate urban soils. The City of Albany now funds the program in part with a contract. Scott has a Ph.D in Science and Technology Studies from RPI and teaches Environmental Education and Citizen Science at Bard College and Urban Policy at SUNY Albany.

MODERADOR

Brenda Platt – Directora, Iniciativa de Compostaje para la Comunidad, Instituto para la Autosuficiencia Local (ILSR), Washington, DC Brenda y su equipo en ILSR apoya a los compostadores a nivel comunitario a través de foros, seminarios web, podcasts, guías, políticas, capacitación y mucho más. En 2017, el Consejo de Compostaje de EE. UU. le otorgó el premio H. Clark Gregory por su destacado servicio a la industria del compostaje a través de iniciativas populares. En 2019, la revista BioCycle presentó a Brenda como una de las pioneras en el reciclaje de productos orgánicos. Tiene una licenciatura en Ingeniería Mecánica por la Universidad George Washington.