The DPR Compost Cooperative at the Howard University Community Garden in NW Washington, DC (Shaw/Howard area), which just celebrated its two-year anniversary, showcases what a collaboration between a local government department, non-profit organizations, small businesses, institutions of higher education, and members of the community can accomplish for composting efforts.… Read More
“The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937 With almost 30% of U.S. cropland eroding above soil tolerance levels – meaning the long-term ability of the soil to sustain plant … Read More
The City of Baltimore is dedicated to developing sustainable local food systems by encouraging urban farming. Compost is an important ingredient for filtering and immobilizing pollutants from our soils. ILSR’s Composting for Community Initiative is proud to help support the City’s food growing goals by partnering with ECO City Farms, Civic Works’ Real Food Farms, and Urban Farm Plans by bringing the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter training course to the Baltimore community! … Read More
We’ve developed this Hierarchy to Reduce Waste & Grow Community in order to highlight the importance of locally based composting solutions as a first priority over large-scale regional solutions. Composting can be small scale and large scale and everything in between but too often home composting, onsite composting, community scale composting, and on-farm composting are overlooked. … Read More
BK ROT, a social composting enterprise in the center of Brooklyn has inspired the Filbert Street Garden in Curtis Bay, Baltimore, to replicate this successful model. ILSR working partner Chesapeake Children and Youth Development manage the garden. For details read, “Building Community Composting in Bushwick, Brooklyn,” BioCycle magazine March/April, p. 46-48. Follow the Institute for Local … Read More
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
The Fourth National Cultivating Community Composting Forum, January 2017, made clear that community composters serve an integral and unique role in both the broader composting industry and the sustainable food movement. … Read More
At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we document and promote innovative uses of local power that can be used around the country. Community composting is a way that neighborhoods can take control of what could be waste, such as food scraps, and turn it into wealth, such as healthy soil. Prospect Heights Community Farm in Brooklyn shows us … Read More
In collaboration with the US Composting Council (USCC) and BioCycle, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announces two events to be held in conjunction with the USCC’s International Conference and Trade Show, COMPOST2017, in Los Angeles: Best Practices in Community Composting Workshop and Cultivating Community Composting Forum 2017.… Read More
Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and similar chain dollar stores are targeting vulnerable communities across the US. Our new report details these companies’ rapid expansion, the growing resistance, and the pressing need for federal policy interventions.
Read the report, and find all of our resources and reporting on chain dollar stores here.
