Want a Job? Try Composting!

One day's worth of food scraps 

 

I've been community composting two days a week for 15 months now. I've put in well over 200 hours of volunteer time into the project, and hauled some 30,000 pounds of material.  But now, I'm tired. I'm over the constant urgency of piling material, and--the worst--washing buckets. I'm done saying "no, I need to compost" when my family asks me to do something fun. I'm ready for something else. I feel like I've proved the point that community composting can work in Juneau. It works in our climate. It works with our wildlife. It works for our businesses. It works in the garden. It works fiscally. I'm just not at a place in my life where I need to start another business. For now my family and commercial fishing is enough. And I need to walk the dogs more.

So, is anyone interested in composting on a large scale? I'm ready to step down and am looking for someone to take over the route! I can provide hands-on "training," and supply logistical and composting advice throughout the process. It's a fast way to build up your compost reserves!

Another idea I've had to handle all the compost is opening the cooperative part up on all ends. What I envision is an online database of businesses who produce compostable materials (food scraps, shredded paper, garden refuse, etc), how much they produce, and when it's available for pickup. Then, users could sign up to pick up so-and-so's buckets every x day. I think it could be a great networking tool to help businesses manage their waste and help gardeners garden better. Even if someone wasn't interested in large scale composting on a continual basis, they could at least acquire material to start a big, hot-composting pile, and periodically add to it as needed.

Broadening off the database idea a bit, if we could end up with site (say a spot out at the Juneau Community Garden) where people could compost, it could really get things rolling. If someone wanted to make some cash picking up food scraps they'd have a place to pile it, and there would be a very local market of buyers right at hand.

In any case, my last official pick-up is next week. If you think you might be interested in picking up some scraps, give me a shout! 

 Goodbye scraps, Hello fertilizer! I've got tons (literally) of finished compost to harvest!