Composting

Every Tray Counts – Diverting school food scraps from the landfill

During our essay contest awards gathering, a young girl stood in front of us while Kenn Webb, the Transylvania County Solid Waste Director, read her essay.  She was a bit shy so Kenn shared her thoughts with us.  She wrote of how her family use to pick up food scraps from the local schools to feed his livestock and suggested this program be brought back.  What a great idea. We are currently compiling the ideas provided through the essay contest into a poster and E-book.  After that, we will go through the suggestions and research their implementation. One of our members recently shared with me a group that works in NC schools to divert food scraps from the landfill (thank you Mark).  The group is called Every Tray Counts and you can find their website here:  http://www.everytraycounts.org/ It looks like they are doing wonderful things and I am excited to put similar practices into action in our community.

By |2019-08-19T12:18:27-04:00August 19th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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Rooster Head Plantation asked for help. We helped.

Last week, Jacqui of Rooster Head Plantation asked if we could help with their community compost drop-off facility.  "Sure" I said, "how can we help?"  She told us some of the issues she was facing and we recommended signage and some gates to keep the compost in the bin, especially when the chickens work to mix it up. After enjoying a wonderful dinner, we headed to the compost drop-off site and got to work. James prepared to hang more signs James brought wood painted and ready to make signs and some giant markers.  He also brought a drill and screws. We asked who had good hand writing and Justin stepped up and grabbed a marker and got to work making signs to help guide contributors to add wood chips to their donation. Su and Ed got to work turning the compost and soon a chicken joined in and started scratching around the pile. We had the site fixed-up in no time and Jacqui took some [...]

By |2019-08-12T14:58:04-04:00August 12th, 2019|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Gatherings, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps, Zero-waste tips|
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It is nice to share. Creating a sharing cooperative in our community.

Love sweet love, It is what the world needs now. Taking in the national news usually leaves me feeling less than hopeful. “They” keep talking about deep divisions in our communities. When I am in our community, I feel love and support and hope. When we gather and share a meal, leave no waste or clean up for our host, as an act of kindness, I feel love and unity. Sharing a meal with a community member is a bonding experience. The food that is presented by those attending is delicious and you can feel the love that went into providing it for our shared dining table. Each person brings their own place setting and it is always a joy for me to see the diversity our community table is set with. It is art, fluid community art. Last week, as someone was setting their place at the table, another member told me that was the dish pattern they grew up with. We both smiled. What a nice [...]

By |2019-08-05T15:15:24-04:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Gatherings, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Sharing Club, Use Food Scraps|
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Rooster Head Plantation Farm Stand needs help with their compost drop-off facility

Jacqui has asked if we could help improve their compost drop-off facility. We said, of course. She needs signage to give folks instructions when dropping off their scraps, among other things. If anyone is interested in helping with the sign or improving the facility, let us know.  

By |2019-07-29T12:11:14-04:00July 29th, 2019|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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Making biochar at Mountain Speak Outpost and learning as a community how to use this incredible soil additive.

Thanks to Mountain Speak Outpost for hosting our class on making biochar. Thanks to John for sharing his knowledge on making biochar. Biochar is a charcoal that is easily made. It is carbon-negative and has increased our garden’s yield. It also helps us reduce the amount of trash our household produces. We have created ½ bag of trash so far this year. Thanks to everyone who attended and thanks to Althea for sharing these photos! It was a wonderful evening.

By |2019-07-29T12:08:19-04:00July 29th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Gatherings, Growing food, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps, Zero-waste tips|
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Althea takes the lead on the Use Food Scrap Essay Contest Results Project

In March, we shared the essays submitted in our Use Food Scraps essay contest with the community. We received dozens of ideas from nineteen essays. Althea has stepped up to take the lead on creating a poster and e-book from the essay entries! At our gathering this past week, she explained some of the details and goals of the project. She will be reading and analyzing each entry and bringing the suggestions together in a format that will help us share throughout our community! I am super-excited to see it come together. Thanks so much Althea!

By |2019-07-14T14:19:37-04:00July 14th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Gatherings, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps, Zero-waste tips|
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Putting the suggestions from our Use Food Scraps essay contest to use.

In March, we announced the winners to our Use Food Scraps Essay contest. We received some amazing suggestions and thanks to Kenn Webb of the Solid Waste Authority, the judge's favorite essays won cash prizes. We are currently working on a poster that brings together all the wonderful suggestions received so that our community can learn from each other and pursue suggestions towards an end to food in our landfill. How exciting. We hope to give each person who submitted an essay a copy of the poster and plan to share it with others in the community. We look forward to unveiling the poster and thank everyone who is making this possible!

By |2019-07-07T16:40:28-04:00July 7th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps, Zero-waste tips|
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Indie Pop-up Flea Market moved towards zero-waste

Shane, owner of GreenGo cleaning products was organizing the Indie Pop-up Flea Market, which was held in the Lumberyard District June 9th.  She asked if we could work with her and move the event to a zero-waste event.  We said heck yea! Shane owns a cleaning company and makes her own cleaning products and sells them at our local farmers market.  She distributes them in glass, which you can bring back and have refilled.  Reuse is key to zero-waste!  Thanks Shane for being a great business model! Shane worked through the health department and found out everything we needed to do to provide re-useable silverware for the food truck meals and we did it.  Thanks to Cedar Mountain Cafe stepping in at the last moment, we were able to wash the silverware in a health department approved kitchen.  Thank you Lucia! We had a great event.  Not only did we have a silverware station, we had a compost station and collected plates, napkins and such.  Shane required [...]

By |2019-06-17T16:20:22-04:00June 13th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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