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Thanks Susan for sharing your story of your visit! Visit to Vermont Composting - August 23 Karl Hammer, owner of Vermont Composting, Montpelier VT, toured me around the 25 year old facility. It was a great education and the best conversation I’ve had in a long time. My reason to visit: Moving to Conserver interest in developing compost options, including a small commercial facility) Highlights noted … The farm sits on a hill, at the edge of Montpelier. As homes moved closer, VC has accommodated urban neighbors with contracts re smell/noise, a pro-active step. When food scraps arrive, chickens are FIRST handlers, about 1000 of them of all ages, free range and housed in 16x24 nested, moveable sheds. Benefits - immediate treatment of bugs, smelly garbage, reveals inadvertent trash. There is no grain added to diet. Eggs are a staff benefit and for sale - a significant income line. They are protected by mules and electric fence. Processing into defined products occurs as named piles are mixed and [...]

On October 11th, over 20 local citizens gathered to talk about our progress towards diverting food scraps from the landfill and ways to divert more.  We heard about obstacles facing local restaurants that need removed so that they can send their food scraps to places where they can be used to make soil and feed livestock.  We heard about a local bicycle compost pick-up service starting in Brevard in January and we heard what citizens are doing in their own yards and their use of local drop-off sites. We talked about how we can support business owners who are interested in creating local, high-quality compost for the community and we offered our help to turn piles at local drop off locations. It was a fantastic gathering.  The conversation was dynamic and far too short.  This was a focus group of sorts for us and helped us identify issues we need to address in the community compost symposium we are organizing.  Now we will move forward to plan a [...]