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Compost Project
Ubicación
To get all the food waste in our neighborhood out of the waste stream and into the compost stream so the compost can be used to grow more local food. Working on home composting, municipal composting, and commercial/institutional. Need to develop composting facilities and facilitate collection. We need the compost to boost community gardens
Sobre ti
Sección 1: Tú
Nombre
Greg
Apellido
Gerritt
Website URL
Organization
Country
Estados Unidos, RI
Sección 2: Tu organización
Nombre de la organización
Environment Council of Rhode Island Education Fund
Sitio web de la organización
Teléfono de la organización
401-621-8048
Dirección de la organización
PO Box 40568 Providence RI 02940
Tu organización es
OSC/ONG
País de la organización
Estados Unidos, RI
tu idea
Name Your Project
Compost Project
Country and state your work focuses on
Estados Unidos, RI
Describe Your Idea
To get all the food waste in our neighborhood out of the waste stream and into the compost stream so the compost can be used to grow more local food. Working on home composting, municipal composting, and commercial/institutional. Need to develop composting facilities and facilitate collection. We need the compost to boost community gardens
Website URL
Innovación
What makes your idea unique?
It would be the first time in New England a state developed an integrated compost system that removed all the food waste and got it composted specifically to replenish local agriculture. right now we are pulling together the entire spectrum of stakeholders, farmers, eaters, municipal officials, composters, restaurants, colleges, supermarkets, waste haulers, and bringing them together to jointly look for solutions. This week the EPA and RIDEM talked to us about the idea of using a brownfield, redeveloping a brownfield in this ancient industrial city as a compost facility. Then an environmental engineer I was talking to yesterday suggested he knew a brownfield that might be available and sent me the maps. Simultaneously we are trying to get a pilot going in southern RI with a dining hall from URI and a local composter. The today i hear abotu a new source of brown material for composting that works really werll and a new experiment in compost remedies seeking to figure out how to compost food waste with no odor. Then Waste Management Incorporated says to me that in 3 years there is going to be hardly anything buried in landfills, everything we now throw out will be a resource.
We need some resources to write all these business plans and crunch the numbers. We need some resources to pull all these diverse strands together.
Is it innovation? maybe, maybe not. But it is putting old ideas together in new ways and bringing the right stakeholders to the table.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
No
Impacto
Esta presentación se trata de
What impact have you had?
Rhode Island has among the highest unemployment rates in the country, about 13%. The state is broke, and the officials charged with getting the state back on track are stymied. The keep recycling the same old tired ideas that have not worked for 50 years. And they continue to base their hopes on the idea that we can continue to grow the economy despite ecological collapse.
This approach is different. It is based on the idea that we may not see economic growth in the foreseeable future, and that we need to make sure that everyone eats despite climate change, peak oil, and other forms of ecological and economic collapse that can happen on a planet with 7 billion people, such as forest losses of 50% in the last 10,000 years, with half in the last 50 years, and the loss of irrigation water in key areas such as California. It is going to make no sense to ship food from California ecologically or economically. So we have to grow our own. And farming is the only part of the RI economy adding jobs, with farmers increasing 42% in RI in the last 10 years.
But we can not do that without a lot more compost. Our soil fertility has been depleted for 300 years. And we have this huge trash problem, that in the smallest state becomes a bigger problem as we have no potential dump sites left in the state.
Then we have the rapidly growing community garden movement. In 5 years in Providence we have nearly tripled the number of community garden plots, going from 200 to 550. The city is now putting community gardens in Parks. At least one new one a year. But what good are community gardens without compost? And they are having trouble obtaining enough.
We are putting together the various pieces of the giant jigsaw puzzle. Hunger, food security, economic revitalization in low income neighborhoods, reducing our carbon footprint (methane in landfills is greatly diminished if you compost the food waste), and building community resilience for the coming hard times.
Problem
Not enough compost to revitalize Rhode island.
Actions
This project began with the scratch the earth method of organizing. Keep talking. Keep working the crowds, keep making phone calls, set the stage, fertilize the ground with some home made compost, pray for sun and rain. In the last 15 months we have brought all the stakeholders together, EPA, DEM, restaurants, businesses, tourism, municipal officials, RI Resource Recovery Corporation, non profits. We have linked restaurants and schools to composters, done research, built committees. We had a great convening in January with 50 stakeholders. We continue to link food sources and composters even while we develop plans,do research and begin pilots.
Results
2010 First statewide compost stakeholders convening in January. Brought 50 stakeholders together. Immediately after began more detailed research, development of business plans and moving forward on pilots with preliminary connections between restaurants institutions and composters already happening.
This spring we shall watch development of a bicycle based collection system that will compost in a community garden.
Ultimately there will be a variety of composting operations around the state capable of properly composting food waste and returning it to the community for growing more food. People will be employed in the collection and production of compostables and compost and agriculture in the community will be much enhanced in all aspects.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
This is what we shall do in 2010. Build committees and business plans. Look for brownfields. Link those with large quantities of food waste with composters for quick victories. Test various methods of big time composting, find ways to haul compost from restaurants/institutions. Research municipal collection systems. Develop more partnerships, work with decision makers
2011 Ramp up the action. Clean a brownfield and link more restaurants and institutions and composters. Help a municipality to start a compost facility and home collections
2012 Build a compost facility on a brownfield and start making compost.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Compost is an idea who's time has come. It is not really an option, it is an imperative. But we are in recession, investments are scarce, and some of the ultimate consumers we hope to provide compost to are not wealthy. if the recession persists tipping fees at the landfill come down, and it is harder to make the numbers work. Global warming skeptics could torpedo efforts to use compost as a methodology for reducing carbon emissions, and to possibly use tax credits for carbon reductions to finance some of this.
Nothing. Flat out nothing will stop this from being successful. We shall divert some food waste, some significant amount of food waste, and get it composted. We may not get it all, but we shall get lots of it diverted and lots of compost made.
How many people will your project serve annually?
Más de 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sí
Sustenibilidad
¿En qué fase está el proyecto?
Fase de idea
In what country?
Estados Unidos, RI
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Sí
If yes, provide organization name.
Environment Council of Rhode Island Education Fund
How long has this organization been operating?
Más de 5 años
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Sí
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Sí
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Sí
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
We are not yet a business, we are still an organizing project. we are developing all the right partnerships and moving towards making it into a business with social and ecological goals as well as monetary. today a consultant said we are more a movement than anything else at this time, but a movement very focused on action. Thinking globally, acting very locally. If DEM, RIRRC, WMI, all the colleges, local compost operations, and town officials had not continued to think this was timely and not continued to allocate their time, it would be the sound of one hand clapping.
We have had success so far because everyone sees how this benefits them as well as the community. Nuff said.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1. Development of business plans, which includes getting a complete handle on the finances of the industry as it would function in RI.
2. Continuing to link potential partners in local endeavors around the state.
3. Finding the right site to turn into a compost operation in Providence or as close to the city as possible, while at the same time finding the right partners for this development.
La historia
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
When i was in school I had a roommate with the album Life is Round by the band Compost. I then ran a barn cleaning service part time for a few years. I have been composting at home for 30 years. When the Land Trust began having trouble filling demand for compost for the growing community gardens, it was time to do something. What that something is continues to evolve.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Greg Gerritt organized his High School for the first Earth day. In his younger days Besides homesteading and building solar houses for himself and with friends he ran a carpentry business specializing in meeting the needs of lower income elderly folks. His 40 years of activism include founding a watershed group that he continues to work with on an innovative way to suppress invasive Japanese Knotweed, run for mayor, studied management, fought nuclear waste dumps, and worked for environmental non profits while maintaining an active consulting practice focused on "Community Prosperity on Planet Earth".
Educated in anthropology and evolutionary biology/ecology he is reasonably adept at reading the evolution of landscapes and the nature of organizations. His adeptness at organizational management comes first from working with some of the most dysfunctional organizations on the planet, and leading the turnaround of his current employer after several years of mismanagement had moved a long time powerful advocacy group into financial ruin. While running one of the most frugal organizations around he has helped it expand programs without expanding staffing and developed several of the more recognized environmental awards programs in the state, one of which is financed by selling raffle tickets, a skill that needs much more recognition in the non profit world.
His biggest interest these days is the ecology/economy interface. He has written extensively on the topic with many of his writings available at www.ProsperityForRI.org The Compost Project has come to dominate his life the last 6 months, but it has been a blast for the first time running a project as timely as this. Pushing for solar energy in the early 1980's, and all of the rest of the Green economy, and seeing society catch up 30 years later, is an interesting phenomena, but one that spurs action rather than nostalgia.
RI is a small place, and with that it runs on personal contacts. Gerritt's work as an activist on peace, justice, homelessness, environmental, trade, and economic issues means he has contacts everywhere as well as a breadth of knowledge, a trait only enhanced by administering as his part time day job the coalition of all environmental groups in RI, the Environment Council of RI. I am the guy people go to when they need to connect something. The network, and the willingness to keep expanding the scope of thinking and action is why I was asked to spark the effort.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
 | greenri dijo: Gaston, I do not have much experience on social business models. What I do know is that in this case, the enterprise will not get going ... sobre este Competition Entry. - hace 609 días leer más > |
| gastonwright dijo: Dear Greg according to your experience what are the main barriers or challenges so that social business models can thrive? Cheers sobre este Competition Entry. - hace 609 días leer más > |
| AliceR dijo: Sadly, no. I'm available to ask questions, but can not commit to conducting research. I work full time at one university and attend ... sobre este Competition Entry. - hace 692 días leer más > |
| greenri dijo: I do not know how pesticides accumulate in compost. Anyone have any research? Alice, would you like to lead this research, I can not do ... sobre este Competition Entry. - hace 692 días leer más > |
| AliceR dijo: Hi, I love the idea of composting on a larger scale. My only question is about how your plan will deal with issues of ... sobre este Competition Entry. - hace 692 días leer más > |
| greenri Actualizar este Competition Entry. - hace 694 días |
| greenri envió esta idea. - hace 694 días |
