Composting

I run Fourth World Living Composting Co-op, which currently serves one grocery store/deli, a restaurant/bakery, a bread bakery, and a food pantry. I've also set up composting systems for the Juneau Montessori School and the Juneau Cooperative Preschool.

I started off running the co-op for 23 families and a preschool. Subscribers had a 2 gallon bucket to put their compostable scraps into. Once a week they put it out on their porch and I picked it up and left an empty one in it's place. I'd go home and record data, dump material, and wash buckets. It was a volunteer service to help educate people about composting and waste management, to collect data about large-scale composting in Juneau, and to provide a growing medium for my own ever-expanding garden.

After six full months and 75+ hours of volunteer time the residential aspect stacked up to:

486 buckets collected and hauled
2644 pounds of kitchen scraps
1002 pounds of yard debris
1076 gallons of material

As a volunteer service, it was a ton of work. It would be a great paying job though, which hopefully I'll get set up sometime in the near future. For now, composting for businesses is easier to manage, so that is all I am doing. Still, it's about 5-6 hours a week

I've been in operation since January 2012. As of Aug 2012 I have collected over 13,000 pounds of material for composting! After my project sees all the seasons I plan on publishing my findings on a broadside so others can set up their own co-ops. I think waiting for curbside recycling and composting is nothing more than hopeless waiting. Grassroots composting is where it's at!