{"id":18156,"date":"2023-09-28T10:19:23","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T14:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/articles\/community-composter-versus-incinerator-in-south-florida\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T14:34:13","slug":"community-composter-vs-incinerator","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/es\/article\/composting-for-community\/community-composter-vs-incinerator","title":{"rendered":"Community Composter versus Incinerator in South Florida"},"template":"","class_list":["post-18156","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_type-podcasts-videos","initiatives-composting-for-community","topics-community-composter-coalition","topics-community-composting","topics-incineration","impact_areas-resilient-cities-and-metros","authors-jordan-ashby","authors-linda-bilsens-brolis"],"acf":{"details":{"featured_image":825,"background_color":"tan","article_type":[34],"initiative":15,"display_event_fields":false,"start_date":null,"end_date":null,"start_time":null,"end_time":null,"time_zone":"America\/New_York","virtual_event":false,"location":"","topics":[42,66,87],"impact_areas":[22],"abstract":"<p>What do we lose when we no longer have control over what happens to the waste we produce? In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we speak to Melissa Corichi of Let It Rot, a community composting business in Palm Beach County in South Florida about her battle against the incinerators in her community.<br \/>\r\n&hellip; <a class=\"kt-excerpt-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/community-composter-vs-incinerator\/\" aria-label=\"Community Composter versus Incinerator in South Florida\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\r\n","authors_tax":[598,635]},"sidebar":{"title":"\u00cdndice"},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><iframe id=\"blubrryplayer-1\" class=\"blubrryplayer\" title=\"Reproductor de podcasts Blubrry\" src=\"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/?media_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.blubrry.com%2Fcomposting_for_community_ilsr%2Fcontent.blubrry.com%2Fcomposting_for_community_ilsr%2FC4C_109-Mel_Corichi_Edits2.mp3&amp;podcast_link=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Fcommunity-composter-vs-incinerator%2F#mode-Light&amp;border-000000&amp;progress-000000\" width=\"100%\" height=\"165\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/span>\r\n<p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast (compostaje para la comunidad): <a class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" title=\"Reproducir en una nueva ventana\" href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/composting_for_community_ilsr\/content.blubrry.com\/composting_for_community_ilsr\/C4C_109-Mel_Corichi_Edits2.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Reproducir en una nueva ventana<\/a> | <a class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Descargar\" href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/composting_for_community_ilsr\/content.blubrry.com\/composting_for_community_ilsr\/C4C_109-Mel_Corichi_Edits2.mp3\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"C4C_109-Mel_Corichi_Edits2.mp3\">Descargar<\/a> | <a class=\"powerpress_link_e\" title=\"Incrustar\" href=\"#\" rel=\"nofollow\">Incrustar<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p id=\"powerpress_embed_102384-composting-for-community\" class=\"powerpress_embed_box\" style=\"display: none;\"><input id=\"powerpress_embed_102384-composting-for-community_t\" style=\"width: 70%;\" readonly=\"readonly\" type=\"text\" value=\"&lt;iframe src=&quot;https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/?media_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.blubrry.com%2Fcomposting_for_community_ilsr%2Fcontent.blubrry.com%2Fcomposting_for_community_ilsr%2FC4C_109-Mel_Corichi_Edits2.mp3&amp;podcast_link=https%3A%2F%2Filsr.org%2Fcommunity-composter-vs-incinerator%2F#mode-Light&amp;border-000000&amp;progress-000000&quot; scrolling=&quot;no&quot; width=&quot;100%&quot; height=&quot;165&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; id=&quot;blubrryplayer-2&quot; class=&quot;blubrryplayer&quot; title=&quot;Blubrry Podcast Player&quot;&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Suscr\u00edbete: <a class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" title=\"Suscr\u00edbete a trav\u00e9s de RSS\" href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/feed\/composting-for-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">RSS<\/a><\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img class=\"wp-image-102395 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Let-it-Rot-273x300.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 273px) 100vw, 273px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Let-it-Rot-273x300.jpg 273w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Let-it-Rot.jpg 751w\" alt=\"\" width=\"273\" height=\"300\" \/>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What do we lose when we no longer have control over what happens to the waste we produce? In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we speak to Melissa Corichi of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.letitrot.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">D\u00e9jalo pudrirse<\/a>, a community composting business in Palm Beach County in South Florida. Melissa has been operating her business since 2015 with the aim of diverting waste in her local community, growing food, and protecting the environment. Her business, however, has been put in jeopardy due to the two incinerators in her county run by the local Solid Waste Authority (SWA). Because of local laws, the SWA claims complete jurisdiction over all waste generated in the county, effectively disallowing the recycling of organic materials beyond the backyard scale. The result: Let It Rot is closing its doors.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We talk about: <\/span>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How the need to feed the local incinerators is preventing meaningful waste diversion efforts in Palm Beach County.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How local rules eliminate the freedom of its residents to choose how the waste they generate is managed.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Melissa\u2019s call for support and the needs community composters face when advocating for policy changes that challenge monopoly power over waste.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The power of community composting to empower a diverse array of community-based initiatives while building social capital.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nWe also provide a brief primer on incineration in the US, including an overview of the impacts of incineration on communities where they are built. We close with a list of actions that we all can take: some to help Melissa in her current battle, some to prevent this from happening in other communities.\r\n<blockquote><b>\u201cYour only choice is to have the SWA take all your trash and the SWA burns all of the organic trash \u2013 so unfortunately all of these people are forced to support a system that they don\u2019t believe in.\u201d<\/b>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>\u201cI work with a lot of different kinds of people from a lot of different kinds of backgrounds, and they all have different political beliefs and spiritual beliefs and jobs and careers and lifestyles. And one thing that they\u2019ve all been able to bond over and agree upon is that composting is very important, not only for the sake of keeping trash out of the landfill or not feeding our incinerator, but also for the purposes of organic gardening, organic food, and soil building.\u201d<\/strong>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><b>\u2013 <\/b> Melissa Corichi<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<div id=\"accordionname18\" class=\"panel-group\">\r\n<div class=\"panel panel-default panel-even\">\r\n<div id=\"collapse180\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse\">\r\n<div class=\"panel-body postclass\">\r\n<div class=\"panel panel-default panel-even\">\r\n<div id=\"collapse920\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse in\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\r\n<div class=\"panel-body postclass\"><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"panel panel-default panel-odd\">\r\n<div class=\"panel-heading\">\r\n<h5><\/h5>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","":null,"settings":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_accordion","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_accordion":{"title":"","items":[{"title":"Related Resources","text":"<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.letitrot.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Let it Rot Website<\/a><\/strong>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/give-palm-beach-county-residents-a-choice-in-how-their-trash-is-processed?recruiter=1258346170&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=facebook&amp;utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&amp;recruited_by_id=7ddb7570-aa9b-11ec-8b06-159b7fbf7da9&amp;share_bandit_exp=initial-37313103-en-US&amp;utm_content=mit-37313103-10%3Av3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Let it Rot Petition<\/a>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/our-right-to-compost-your-food-scraps?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&amp;utm_medium=copy_link_all&amp;utm_source=customer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Let it Rot GoFundMe<\/a>\r\n\r\n\u201c<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu\/earth-systems\/blog\/tell-me-about-waste-incineration-in-florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tell Me About: Waste Incineration in Florida<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d Florida Museum (2022)\r\n\r\n\u201c<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.palmbeachpost.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2015\/05\/19\/turning-garbage-to-electricity-early\/6822676007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Turning garbage to electricity: An early look at a monster incinerator<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d Palm Beach Post (2016)\r\n\r\n\u201c<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wastedive.com\/news\/florida-waste-combustion-power-purchase-expansion-desantis\/620276\/\">Florida solidifies its status as the nation\u2019s waste-to-energy capital with supportive new law<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d Waste Dive (2022)\r\n\r\n<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swa.org\/Facilities\/Facility\/Details\/Renewable-Energy-Facility-1-9\">Renewable Energy Facility 1<\/a><\/strong>, Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority (accessed Sept 2023)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrdc.org\/bio\/daniel-rosenberg\/burned-why-waste-incineration-harmful\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Burned: Why Waste Incineration Is Harmful<\/a>,\u201d NDRC (2021)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/floridadep.gov\/waste\/waste-reduction\/content\/florida-recycling-statutes-and-rules\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida Recycling Statutes and Rules<\/a>,\u201d Florida Department of Environmental Protection (accessed Sept 2023)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/waste-incineration-renewable-energy\/\">Report: Waste Incineration: A Dirty Secret in How States Define Renewable Energy<\/a>,\u201d ILSR (2018)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/climate\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pclm.0000100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Waste incinerators undermine clean energy goals<\/a>,\u201d Neil Tangri (2023)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/may\/21\/us-pollution-incinerators-waste-burning-plants-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Revealed: 1.6m Americans live near the most polluting incinerators in the US<\/a>,\u201d The Guardian (2019)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/smm\/energy-recovery-combustion-municipal-solid-waste-msw#01\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Energy Recovery from the Combustion of Municipal Solid Waste<\/a>,\u201d EPA (accessed Sept 2023)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/global-anti-incineration-2018\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Anti-Garbage Incineration Around the Globe, A Review<\/a>,\u201d ILSR (2018)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/detroit.umich.edu\/news-stories\/the-fight-against-detroits-controversial-waste-incinerator-hits-home-for-ahmina-maxey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The fight against Detroit\u2019s controversial waste incinerator hits home for Ahmina Maxey<\/a>,\u201d University of Michigan, Detroit (2019)\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitgreentaskforce.org\/organics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Detroit Organics Recycling<\/a>, Detroit City Council Green Taskforce (accessed Sept 2023)\r\n\r\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/article\/florida-west-palm-beach-let-it-rot-worm-queen-solid-waste-authority-shut-down\/45379965\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Local composting business, \u2018Let it Rot\u2019 shut down by Solid Waste Authority<\/a>,\u201d ABC 25 WPBF News, September 29, 2023."},{"title":"Transcript","text":"&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAcross the country, the community composting movement is growing. Small scale composting provides communities immediate opportunities for reducing waste, improving local soil, creating jobs, and fighting climate change. You\u2019re listening to the Composting for Community Podcast, where we\u2019ll bring you stories from the people doing this work on the ground and in the soil.\r\n\r\nWelcome back to the Composting for Community Podcast. I\u2019m Linda Bilsens Brolis of the Institute for Local Self Alliances Composting for Community Initiative, and in this episode I talked to Melissa Corichi of Let It Rot, a community composting business in Palm Beach County in south Florida. Melissa started Let it Rot in 2015 to accomplish food scraps from her community and support local efforts to divert waste, grow food, and protect the environment, but the county is also home to two separate waste incinerators. Last year, Let it Rot and its partner organizations began receiving threats of steep daily fines, supposedly stealing material from the county\u2019s solid waste authority and Florida Power and Light, an electric utility that uses the power generated from the trash burned in the incinerators.\r\n\r\nBecause of state and local laws, the solid waste authority claims complete jurisdiction over all waste generated in the county. Effectively, this allowing the recycling of organic materials beyond the backyard scale. The result, Let it Rot is closing its doors. This is a story of how incinerator are directly at odds with meaningful waste reduction efforts, eliminating our freedom to choose how the waste we generate is managed. I just want to add a gentle warning here, that while the episode is a little heavier than our others, we close with positive actions that anyone can take, so stay tuned.\r\n\r\nHello folks. I\u2019m here with Melissa Corichi, owner of Let it Rot, worm farm and community compost in South Florida. Thanks for joining us, Melissa.\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThank you for having me.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re going to get into the details of the challenges you\u2019re facing as a community composter, but first tell us about Let It Rot and about your community in Palm Beach County.\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI got started with Let It Rot back in 2015. It was actually a project for a class I was taking in college called Social Entrepreneurship, and we were challenged to come up with some sort of business that would compliment our nonprofit partner, and our nonprofit partner that semester was the Palm Beach County Food Bank, which is this massive warehouse for food recovery, sorting and distribution to the food pantry network that we have here in Palm Beach County. When we went there, what I noticed right away was there was tons and tons of produce donations that were all over ripe or already too rotten to be redistributed and they were just getting thrown away. In fact, they said that they were throwing away over 20,000 pounds of organics a year, just part of the sorting process that they were going through and what kind of food they were allowed to redistribute.\r\n\r\nI had this bright idea to compost the produce, make some soil, and then trade that with the farmers who were donating the produce for more food donations. I applied for a grant and I ended up getting offered about $25,000 to start the program, so I did. I built a worm bin in one of the sheds of the food bank and started diverting some of the rotten produce to the worm bin that I had in the shed of the food bank. I ended up, I think diverting about 7,000 pounds of produce scraps the first year that I worked. I was not good at worm farming and I didn\u2019t make hardly any soil. It wasn\u2019t really a successful venture. The food bank did not want to keep working with me, but I kind of fell in love with the composting process and the idea of recovering these resources.\r\n\r\nI heard about the community composting movement and decided to launch my own little pilot pickup route and I offered free pickups to a couple of people in the community I was living in on a weekly basis. From that pilot program, I started accepting real customers. I started collecting customers at about $10 a month and eventually my prices increased all the way up to $16 a month, which is what my residents pay right now, but I went from having 10 free customers to having over 100 subscribers to my community compost pickup program. I tried to work with my community as much as possible and found this incredible urban farm in downtown West Palm Beach called Urban Growers at the Henrietta Bridge Farm, and I built my first little public compost station there and I got to start working with some people in the community. It was a low income community food desert, which is why that space got funded to grow food.\r\n\r\nI met a lot of young people who had no experience with farming or nature growing food, and they started helping me run my community compost. I taught them how to do the compost. I got them washing all those buckets for me right away. Unfortunately, when COVID happened, the community garden was temporarily shut down and it ended up getting defunded and closed down. That brought me to a place where I had no land and was hauling a thousand pounds of food scraps a week with nowhere to compost it, so I launched a compost program where I met a lot of homesteaders and gardeners in my community and I taught them all how to compost. Instead of bringing the compost to a central location and composting it every day, I would go to a new person\u2019s house and help them do the compost that afternoon and inspire them to build their soil and do better and grow organically.\r\n\r\nFrom there, eventually I bought my own place and I started composting on my own piece of property, which is where I\u2019m at now. The business has kind of iterated through the community a couple different ways. I have a bunch of zero wasters and people who are on their own personal mission of sustainability that I\u2019ve met through great community resources that I\u2019ve worked with or worked for in the past. We have a package free grocery store that I met a lot of these people at. I work with this awesome community center for the immigrant community to find them jobs and place them in legal jobs, and I\u2019ve done some work with them. They have a community garden as well. I have the urban farm in downtown West Palm Beach, and I\u2019ve gotten to meet so many different people who I call the green community and bring them together with this shared love of the environment and sustainability.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s such a great overview of the many evolutions that you\u2019ve made as a business and how you\u2019ve adapted as you\u2019ve gotten to know your community in a more intimate way. That\u2019s so cool that you\u2019ve been engaging such a diverse array of community members, which is I think pretty typical of the community composting movement, so thanks for laying that out for us. Now let\u2019s talk about the elephant in the room, the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority, which now has two incinerators in the county. The newest one which opened in 2015, I believe, it was the first incinerator to be built in the US in almost 20 years, and the biggest capital project ever in Palm Beach County at over $600 million. Wow.\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nJust call it the Billion Dollar Waste to Energy Plant because so much funding went into this facility because in Palm Beach County\u2019s eyes, the first facility that they built the same year that I started the business was a huge success to them. Between the two facilities, I think they can power about 80,000 homes in our community. I first got in trouble with the solid waste authority because I\u2019m taking organics out of the waste stream, and they burn organics for energy here. I was served my first cease and desist letter in April of 2022. I was basically told that I\u2019m not a registered entity with the solid waste authority and I need to be a registered subcontractor in order to work in the waste hauling and processing industry.\r\n\r\nWhen I explained what a small business I was and what kind of numbers I was doing and that according to the state law I didn\u2019t need to register with them just yet because I wasn\u2019t in a position where I needed to be regulated with the amount of waste I was processing, they told me flat out that organics recycling isn\u2019t allowed in Palm Beach County due to something called the Flow Code. The Flow Code is the direction that they send different waste streams to the different facilities in Palm Beach County, and all of the organics are sent to our waste to energy plants. Between the two, they can burn almost 2 million pounds of trash annually. I process under 100,000 pounds of waste annually. I think the biggest numbers I\u2019ve done so far was about 80,000 pounds last year, which was a huge feat for me because the year before I only did like 50,000 pounds, and I do all of my composting backyard composting style. No equipment, with a pitchfork in a pile.\r\n\r\nRight now we\u2019re doing a lot of trench composting so I don\u2019t have to turn my piles, but the Solid Waste Authority, when they were initially funded with this project to build these waste to energy plants, they were also given the privilege of writing all the laws about trash and how it\u2019s handled here in Palm Beach County. The Solid Waste Authority decided to very blatantly claim that all trash here in Palm Beach County is property of theirs, so the cease and desist that I was getting essentially was telling me that I\u2019m stealing from the Solid Waste Authority from Palm Beach County and from FPL, and that\u2019s where they\u2019ve been coming at me continuously to shut down my operation.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWow. ILSR has a long history of helping to fight proposed incinerators. Back in the 80s, I guess in early 90s when that was still sort of a trend, I\u2019d always heard that once an incinerator gets built, that community is basically locked into feeding that incinerator because it\u2019s such a big investment. I know in the case of the newest one in Palm Beach County, it\u2019s like a 20-year loan that has to be paid back, and that\u2019s paid back by the rate payers. Basically it\u2019s locking in the county and the residents of the county into using that incinerator. I just think this is such a poignant example of what happens in terms of the control of that material and the lack of choice. Where has this put you and your business at this point?\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s put me in a really uncomfortable position where I\u2019ve had to make some really difficult choices about what I\u2019m going to do and the future for myself and the future of Let it Rot. I have tried to advocate for myself. I\u2019ve been to many county commissioner board meetings. I worked with one of our state legislators, Rick Roth, to try to talk with the county about the difficulties that they were placing on me and my business, and I was not really able to get any sort of permission or right to work. I wasn\u2019t able to get any sort of exemption from the laws here.\r\n\r\nI have talked to a lot of other businesses that operate the same way I do that are in different counties of Florida, and I know up in Orlando, O-Town Compost was able to get an exemption from the laws there that were preventing them from being able to keep working. I tried to take that route and didn\u2019t get anywhere. I talked to Renewable down in Broward County who is also facing some potential dangers with a waste to energy plant that\u2019s being put into Broward County. Maybe it\u2019s just proposed. It hasn\u2019t been voted on or funded just yet, and they\u2019re looking at adopting all of the same laws in Palm Beach County in Broward County, which would essentially put their businesses out of business as well. I purchased property with the intention of running Let it Rot off of the property that I purchased and live off of, and now I\u2019m in the uncomfortable situation where I can\u2019t update my business address and my personal address because I have the county looking for me to shut down my operations.\r\n\r\nWhen I first started getting the cease and desist letters from Palm Beach County, they actually sent regulators out to all of the businesses that I had listed on my website as partners that I work with and told these businesses that they were operating illegal transfer stations and they would be subjected to fines of $500 a day for every day they continue to keep working with me. A lot of these businesses are small businesses like my own and decided that it wasn\u2019t worth that kind of risk to continue working for me, so I had to watch these sustainability initiatives disappear and these people who really wanted to do better for the environment and for their community lose that opportunity to do so because there is no countywide composting alternative that\u2019s offered here. Your only choice is to have SWA haul your trash, and the SSA burns all of the organic trash here. Unfortunately, all of these people are forced to support a system that they don\u2019t believe in.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThanks for listening to this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast. If you\u2019re enjoying it, please consider supporting our work with a donation by going to ilsr.org\/donate. Your donations make this show and all the work we do here at ILSR possible. Visit ilsr.org\/donate to make your contribution today. Any amount is sincerely appreciated. If you\u2019re looking for other ways to support us, consider rating or leaving a review of the show wherever you listen to your podcast. These reviews help us reach a wider audience. Thanks again for listening, and now back to the show.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s an example of once an incinerator is built, it disincentivizes or crushes in this instance any significant efforts towards diversion, but that\u2019s on top of the other environmental and public health impacts that an incinerator has, which we won\u2019t cover here, but we can add some information on that for those that need it in the show notes below. What do you think is being lost when a community composters such as yourself is no longer able to operate the benefits that you provided, the diverse communities that you were working with? Can you tell us your thoughts about that?\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWell, I work with a lot of different kinds of people from a lot of different kinds of backgrounds and they all have different political beliefs and spiritual beliefs and jobs and careers and lifestyles. One thing that they\u2019ve all been able to bond over and agree upon is that composting is very important not only for the sake of keeping trash out of the landfill or not feeding our incinerator in this case, but also for the purposes of organic gardening, organic food, soil building. Most of the customers who find me believe in clean eating and a clean environment and not using pesticides and herbicides and things like that that poison our local environment.\r\n\r\nPalm Beach County is an area of Florida that\u2019s incredibly beautiful. We have a lot of natural landscapes. The ocean is right here. One thing that\u2019s really important to everybody here that\u2019s a continual crisis on almost an annual basis is the blue-green algae blooms that we have as a result of the fertilizers that are used in agriculture here. For those of you who aren\u2019t very familiar with Palm Beach County and how our agriculture industry works, we grow a ton of food here in Florida. Corn and sugar are some of the biggest things that we grow and we use a ton of fertilizer every year in order to grow that stuff.\r\n\r\nThat fertilizer rinses into our groundwater and eventually drains into this big lake in the center of the state called Lake Okeechobee. Lake Okeechobee has been designed by the Army Corp engineers to have floodgates on either side of it. Annually as the rains come in and the water in Lake Okeechobee starts to really rise, they have to drain Lake Okeechobee a little bit and release the water from Lake Okeechobee out either direction into either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. Something that happens as a result of doing that is the nitrification of our waterways, our intracoastals and our oceans. We have hundreds of thousands of animals, fish seabirds and other stuff that depend on that ecosystem that die every year because of these releases that we do.\r\n\r\nSomething that\u2019s very important to everybody here in Palm Beach County is figuring out a way to end that and composting and creating living soils and practicing more regenerative methods of growing and farming are high priorities to the community here, especially the green community, which is the people I\u2019ve brought together with my business. In shutting me down and preventing me on such a small scale to make soils locally that are healthier and can be used in a more sustainable way to grow food is just squashing that whole industry from potentially popping up and helping solve a huge problem that we have with no immediate solution.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nYeah. It\u2019s devastating. At a time when we really need to be rallying to make those kinds of changes and we need to be composting more, not less, and we need less pollution, not more.\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn Florida, at least around here, we don\u2019t have real good dirt. We have something called sugar sand, and sugar sand is what it sounds like. It\u2019s just sand. You go to dig a hole and it\u2019s like digging a hole at the beach. It just continues to fill itself back in. There\u2019s no organic matter to our soil to help hold moisture and nutrients, so the landscape is becoming more and more desolate as these inorganic growing practices are being applied. One thing that I can teach people right away with doing all the composting I\u2019ve been doing is how important organic matter is to the soil, and it\u2019s so easy to see the difference with the quality of soil that we have here to begin with that it has been pretty easy to convince people to start composting with me or learn how to compost with my compost program because of the results that I\u2019ve gotten in my own garden and the gardens that I\u2019ve worked with for other people.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nYou\u2019re also empowering people to take an active role in their immediate lives in an immediate environment instead of having to wait for bigger efforts to take root. It\u2019s a way to empower folks that\u2019s being squashed at this point, so very sorry to hear that. At this point, what would you say your plans for the future look like?\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve made the very difficult choice to shut down all my operations. These next two weeks are the last two weeks that I\u2019ll be doing pickups for all my residential subscribers. I have to move on with beginning my life in my new home, and I haven\u2019t been able to do that because I\u2019ve had to hide what I\u2019m doing here from the county to avoid getting these fines and repercussions of the work that I\u2019ve been doing. I made the choice to go into a completely different industry. I studied this year and I got licensed to sell insurance. I essentially asked myself what is an industry I could go into where I could still help people and where I could make a much better living than what I\u2019ve been able to do working in the compost industry, and I had an opportunity to learn insurance and start working in that field.\r\n\r\nI would be lying if I said that some of the intention to have a bigger income wasn\u2019t to be able to afford the legal help that I need in order to go up against the county and try to fight for the right to compost here. As far as Let it Rot goes, it\u2019s always been a very grassroots operation. I\u2019ve made a living off of it, but I have never had the resources to really reinvest and grow the business and scale it up into something bigger. The trouble I got in with the county kind of prevented me from wanting to take out a loan or go into debt to grow the business or fight for the business to stay open and potentially devastate myself in the home that I\u2019m living in. I wish that I would have gone the nonprofit route when I got started because that would open me up to more funding opportunities and better resources where maybe I could have fought the government a little bit better and had a little bit more support in doing so.\r\n\r\nThe only reason I never did is because I lost my partnership with the Community Garden who was a functioning nonprofit that allowed me to work under their nonprofit tax identification, and I lost all of the staff and help and support along with having that space. I went from having a ton of volunteers and a ton of people that I was paying to help me too to not being in that community anymore and not having any of those human resources that I used to have. All of the day-to-day of running Let it Rot fell on me. I am driving all of my pickup routes. I am doing all of the compost every week. I\u2019m washing all of the buckets every weekend and getting myself together to go haul another thousand pounds of compostable waste the following week.\r\n\r\nIt just became too much to keep up with while trying to advocate for myself and fight for my right to keep operating. While continuing to run the day-to-day, I made the difficult decision to start studying in a different industry and make my graceful exit from community composting into something where I might potentially have some better resources and opportunities if Let it Rot is something I do want to turn around and continue to pursue when I do have those resources and I\u2019m in a better place.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWow. It\u2019s just amazing to hear what you have accomplished to this point as a one woman show, and you\u2019re facing a huge barrier that would\u2019ve been difficult to foresee. Hindsight is 2020 to a point, but you also have no idea how things would\u2019ve played out if you had done things differently, if you had gone the nonprofit route, for example. What at this point would you want to share with those listening who might be community composters or might be policymakers that are in communities that could be facing a similar scenario as what you\u2019ve been dealing with?\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nDon\u2019t underestimate the value of a tight-knit community and some really good intentions. I feel like my entire journey with Let It Rot, I never really knew what I was signing myself up for or getting myself into, and a lot of these opportunities sort of just fell into my lap and I jumped on them. I\u2019ve gotten to work with so many incredible business entities, NGOs, nonprofit organizations. I\u2019ve gotten to go behind the scenes for commercial productions. I\u2019ve gotten to work events and empower people to feel better about how much waste they\u2019re generating at their wedding or their birthday party or their business networking meeting, and I did a lot of that on my own with just the idea that I could help these people be as sustainable as possible. Had I never been put in a situation where I had to fight the local government in order to keep working, I definitely would have never stopped composting or shut down Let it Rot.\r\n\r\nThe feeling that I get when I inspire somebody else that they can do good in the world and they can do a little bit better by just being conscious of their impact has been one of the most rewarding things that I\u2019ve experienced on a regular basis. I have customers that are so grateful to work with me and for all the work that I do. Customer service is never a stressful or difficult thing to go through in this industry. People are just so happy to be a part of what you\u2019re offering and that you can help them. I would tell people not to give up and to keep working and to keep fighting and really follow their passion.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIt sounds like that\u2019s exactly what you did and that\u2019s a beautiful legacy that you\u2019re leaving. If even being interrupted right now, maybe in the grand scheme of things this will be a blip, but is there any way that folks can get involved in your efforts at this point?\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIdeally, I can do something to change the laws around here and make Palm Beach County a little bit friendlier to initiatives like Let it Rot and community composting. I\u2019m not going to be able to do that while running my own community composting business, but I am very interested in continuing to get to know my county officials and trying to influence them for potentially another community compost business to pop up here and offer what I was able to offer Palm Beach County. I don\u2019t know where and how to get started doing that. Any kind of help from somebody who has maybe been through this sort of situation and has navigated themselves out of it to enable composting to happen, I would love to hear from.\r\n\r\nI really did try to fight and advocate for composting in Palm Beach County and unfortunately I just didn\u2019t have enough support and resources to be heard as loud as I was shouting. I still have my website up, letitrot.org, and I am open to any conversation that anybody might have with me about how to navigate the laws here and potentially change them for a more sustainable future here. I don\u2019t really know anything specific to ask for because I just got to a place where everything that I was doing wasn\u2019t getting me anywhere and it was just burning me out and exhausting me, but there\u2019s definitely a desire to change the laws here in Palm Beach County and allow community composting to be something that happens. Anybody who\u2019s willing to help me advocate for some open laws and initiatives to change, I would love to hear from.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAwesome. Well, thanks again for taking time to share your story with us, to share the joys and successes that you did experience with Let It Rot and the unfortunate reality that you\u2019re facing right now that hopefully is just the end of a chapter, but that is not the end of your Let It Rot chapter.\r\n\r\n<strong>Melissa Corichi:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThank you so much for talking to me. I love to share my story and I would love to hear from anybody who has anything to say about it.\r\n\r\n<strong>Linda Bilsens Brolis:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nTo close out this episode, we wanted to provide a little more context for Melissa\u2019s battle. You can also find links to more resources in the notes for this episode. Waste incineration refers to the burning of municipal solid waste which is problematic for many reasons. While today\u2019s waste incineration technology is more sophisticated than that of the 50s, it\u2019s highly expensive and does not adequately control toxic emissions from today\u2019s chemically complex waste. Even new municipal waste i<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrdc.org\/bio\/daniel-rosenberg\/burned-why-waste-incineration-harmful\">ncinerators emit toxic<\/a> metals, dioxins, acid gases, and climate pollutants. And they don\u2019t eliminate the need for a landfill, since they produce an ash residue that is toxic and must be disposed of.\r\n\r\nBecause newer incinerators recover heat to produce steam and electricity, they are sometimes misleadingly referred to as \u201cwaste-to-energy\u201d facilities. In reality, they are \u201cwasted energy\u201d plants. Burning waste is incredibly energy intensive \u2013 especially for wet organic materials like food scraps \u2013 and actually represents a net loss of energy when you account for the energy embodied in the materials being burned. It should not be considered a source of renewable energy. Despite this, many states unfortunately legally classify incineration as \u201crenewable\u201d in their state rules, including <a href=\"https:\/\/floridadep.gov\/waste\/waste-reduction\/content\/florida-recycling-statutes-and-rules\">Florida<\/a>.\r\n\r\nResearch by <a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/waste-incineration-renewable-energy\/\">ILSR<\/a> and other groups shows that there are other direct impacts to communities from incineration. As we heard here, incinerators <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/climate\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pclm.0000100\">severely curtail or even eliminate<\/a> meaningful recycling and composting efforts. They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/may\/21\/us-pollution-incinerators-waste-burning-plants-report\">exacerbate environmental injustice<\/a> by adding pollution to already overburdened communities. They represent huge capital investments that require cities and counties to make debt payments for decades, costs that are often footed by taxpayers. At the same time, incinerators create far fewer jobs per ton as compared to recycling and composting.\r\n\r\nFor these reasons, resistance to the construction of new incinerators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/smm\/energy-recovery-combustion-municipal-solid-waste-msw#01\">has grown over time<\/a>. An estimated <a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/global-anti-incineration-2018\/\">300 proposed incinerators<\/a> were defeated by citizen and small business coalitions in the US from the 70s to mid 90s. ILSR was directly involved in many of these battles. There has been only one new garbage incinerator built in the US since 1995\u2026 and it\u2019s the one that\u2019s shutting down Let It Rot.\r\n\r\nSo what\u2019s at stake? You heard from Melissa about the diverse set of community members and initiatives she was engaging with and empowering. And yet, The Palm Beach County SWA shut down Let It Rot for processing at most, 80,000 lbs of organics in a year out of the roughly 1.8 million TONS of waste it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westlakegov.com\/community\/page\/news-solid-waste-authority-palm-beach-county-2#:~:text=We%20call%20ourselves%20AWAY%3A%20whether,electricity%20at%20renewable%20energy%20facilities\">sends to its incinerators<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s less than .002%. With this, they are saying that her customers don\u2019t have the freedom to choose how the resources embedded in their waste are reinvested.\r\n\r\nSo what can we do? If you\u2019re considering starting any sort of waste diversion initiative or business, know what state and local laws exist before you begin, and know who your competitors are. Get involved where you can and help others get seats at decision-making tables where waste infrastructure is being planned. These rules are decided locally. They should not be written behind closed doors, especially by corporate interests.\r\n\r\nPrevent incinerators from being built and fight them where they exist. The recent closure of Detroit\u2019s incinerator that resulted from a <a href=\"https:\/\/detroit.umich.edu\/news-stories\/the-fight-against-detroits-controversial-waste-incinerator-hits-home-for-ahmina-maxey\/\">decade-long community-led campaign<\/a>, shows that this is possible. Now, the city is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitgreentaskforce.org\/organics\">prioritizing the development<\/a> of distributed composting options. And finally, Melissa currently has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/give-palm-beach-county-residents-a-choice-in-how-their-trash-is-processed?recruiter=1258346170&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=facebook&amp;utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&amp;recruited_by_id=7ddb7570-aa9b-11ec-8b06-159b7fbf7da9&amp;share_bandit_exp=initial-37313103-en-US&amp;utm_content=mit-37313103-10%3Av3\">petition<\/a> to get Palm Beach County\u2019s policymakers to change local laws to allow composting, as well as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/our-right-to-compost-your-food-scraps?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&amp;utm_medium=copy_link_all&amp;utm_source=customer\">gofundme campaign<\/a> to raise funds to help cover her legal costs. So, let\u2019s get to it!\r\n\r\nThanks for listening to this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. This episode was produced by Drew Birschbach and ILSR\u2019s composting team. Our theme music is I Don\u2019t Know from Grapes. Be Sure to check out the rest of the ILSR podcast family, including building local power, local energy rules, and community broadband bits at ilsr.org."}]}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<div id=\"collapse181\" class=\"panel-collapse collapse \">\r\n<div class=\"panel-body postclass\"><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<img class=\"alignright wp-image-91899 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-300x300.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-250x250.png 250w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-730x730.png 730w, https:\/\/ilsr.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C4C-Podcast-Logo-365x365.png 365w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>\r\n\r\n*<em>Correction: During the interview, Melissa mentions the amount of waste the Palm Beach County SWA sends to incinerators. This amount is 1.8 million tons, not pounds.<\/em>\r\n<h2><\/h2>\r\n<h4><em>Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/composting-for-community\/id1482294569\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts<\/a> | <a class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_android\" title=\"Subscribe on Android\" href=\"https:\/\/subscribeonandroid.com\/ilsr.org\/feed\/composting-for-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Android<\/a> | <a class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/feed\/composting-for-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">RSS<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\r\nListen to this episode, then check out more episodes of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/composting-for-community-podcast-homepage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Composting for Community Podcast<\/a>.\r\n\r\nFollow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ilsr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/localselfreliance\/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ilsr74\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram<\/a>. For monthly updates on our work, <a href=\"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/newsletter-signup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sign up<\/a> for our ILSR general newsletter.<span id=\"more-50133\"><\/span>\r\n\r\nIf you have show ideas or comments, please email us at <a href=\"mailto:info@ilsr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">info@ilsr.org<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<em>Audio Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/ccmixter.org\/files\/grapes\/16626\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I Dunno<\/a> by Grapes. Licensed under a Creative Commons <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/3.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)<\/a> license.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Image Credit: Melissa Corichi of Let It Rot Worm Farm &amp; Community Compost<\/em>\r\n<div class=\"ttr_end\"><\/div>\r\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-16 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" style=\"font-size: 0px; width: 16px; height: 16px; margin: 0; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-right: 5px;\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" 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