The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) visited Greenbelt’s composting operations on Friday, September 30. Brenda Platt of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) contacted Luisa Robles, sustainability coordinator for Greenbelt’s Public Works department, and Hally Ahearn, founding member of the community food scraps and hot-composting programs, asking them to plan for a visit by EPA to see Greenbelt’s composting projects. Platt directs ILSR’s Composting for Community project, including Greenbelt’s Zero Waste Circle among over 240 other Community Compost Coalition organizations across the U.S. Adam Ortiz, who served as director of the Prince George’s County Department of the Environment from 2012 to 2019 and is currently EPA’s Region 3 administrator, wanted others to see Greenbelt’s community composting operations.
Platt put Robles and Ahearn in touch with Melissa Pennington from EPA Region 3 to plan the September 30 tour. Region 3 includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
First, a Lunch Stop
The visit included a special lunch at the New Deal Café. The EPA entourage included Ortiz with five division heads from Region 3 and eight from EPA headquarters. Other participants were from the Prince George’s County Department of the Environment and the State of Maryland Environmental Services office; Platt and others from ILSR; Frank Franciosi, executive director of the U.S. Composting Council; Greenbelt Public Works’ Robles and Kevin Carpenter-Driscoll; and leaders from Greenbelt’s composting operations: Ahearn, Beth LeaMond, Danny Lewis, Stephanie O’Brien, Lore Rosenthal and Councilmember Kristen Weaver.
During lunch, Platt spoke about the importance of community composting in the hierarchy of methods to manage organic food waste recycling. Dan Gillotte, Co-op Supermarket manager and New Deal Café food service manager, spoke about how his staff sets aside food waste from the produce section and fills five-gallon buckets for pickup. Gillotte commented that he hopes to have more produce that can be kept from the landfill in the future.
Hot Composting
After lunch, a walking tour of the Roosevelt Center composting operation began with a quick sashay past the grocery’s loading dock where the buckets are routinely picked up by volunteers dubbed “The Wigglers.” Then the tour group ambled toward the hot-composting station that sits near the Aquatic Center.
At the station, Lewis, who organizes and monitors the hot-composting operation, explained that about every six weeks, a balanced formula of leaves, wood chips and food waste gets mixed and added to fill one whole bin. Volunteers include high school students earning service-learning credit and school-age children and their parents who weigh buckets, chop food for the mix and clean the 50 or more food buckets – from 600 to over 900 pounds of food waste per session. So far this year, 5,971 pounds have been diverted.
Vermicompost
Next, the group headed up the hill past The Granite Building to the loading dock of the New Deal Café where the namesake red “wigglers” reside in three large green bins. There, LeaMond explained how the hot-composting operation guarantees temperatures above 131 degrees Farenheit to kill pathogens and seeds. Once cooled, the compost is a mix much like that of the red wigglers’ diet in the wild. The worms reprocess the compost, adding microbes from their digestive tracts and douse the mix with their castings, adding elevated levels of many microbes and plant nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – organically grown versions of the “NPK” found in chemical fertilizers. The microbes continue to produce these nutrients as they ingest and populate the soil to which this vermicompost is applied. The visitors were gifted a re-labeled coffee bag containing a quart of this valuable soil amendment.
More Hot Composting
Next, the tour visited the Springhill Lake Recreation Center site, where members drop off their food scraps and hold composting workdays using another three-bin hot-composting station. As the group gathered, Rosenthal pointed out the city’s green enhancements to this site: a solar roof on the Recreation Center, the permeable pavement of the parking lot, the electric vehicle charging stations, the huge rain barrel and the rain gardens that collect runoff at the foot of the parking lot.
Rosenthal explained the importance of the application process and the training program required for membership in the food scraps drop-off program. Members learn how hot-composting works; what food wastes are acceptable at a public site; how to weigh, log, then drop off and cover their food scraps with an equal mix of leaves and wood chips in bin 1. These volunteers, some who joined the project in 2018 when Public Works built and placed this first hot-compost station, are dubbed “The Hots.”
Weaver explained how the hot-composting cook happens after the transfer from bin 1 to bin 2, and the curing phase that happens after the compost has cooled down and is transferred to bin 3 for curing. Weaver stressed the importance of the logs and taking the temperatures of the bins to ascertain when cooking, cooling and curing are complete. The group learned about sifting workdays, when the compost is rotated using a trommel sifter built by Greenbelter Michael Travis. Sifted compost is bagged for distribution in free hops bags from Franklin’s Brewery in Hyattsville.
Compost Distribution
Both projects distribute compost and vermicompost: first to workday participants, to members who request some, to each of the Three Sisters Gardens in Greenbelt, the Food Forest and to Greenbelt’s community gardeners whose plots were established in 1937 as an integral part of the green town plan. Vermicompost is also available at the Farmers Market table in exchange for a recommended donation of $5 per quart to the New Deal Café.
In environmental lingo, local distribution of the compost is called “closing the loop.” Organic waste is diverted from the landfill, where it creates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting locally reduces hauling and keeps the resource in the community as a valuable soil amendment.
Greenbelters interested in joining the food-scraps drop-off program (The Hots) may send an email to GreenbeltNeighborhoodCompost@gmail.com. Those interested in helping with the Roosevelt Center food diversion and worm-composting program (The Wigglers) may send an email to NewDealWigglers@gmail.com.
