Long piles of compost line a large, flat area at the Yardwaste Recycling Center in southwest Springfield. Each is in various stages of decomposition.
A hulking piece of machinery, aptly named the Scarab, moves over each pile, turning the mixture and adding air so it doesn’t overheat and catch fire – but also to help the compost break down.
These impressive piles are part of the City of Springfield’s Dish to Dirt program.
"For years, we've been taking on like institutional food waste, so like French's onion, the onion ends they make those fried onions with, we've taken those for years," said Ashley Krug, market development coordinator for the City’s Environmental Services.
Much of the piles consist of yard waste – leaves, grass and brush – but things like those onions, tea bags, wooden skewers, soft compostable products and food collected by citizens gets mixed in. The City has been composting yard waste and industrial food waste for nearly two decades. But it had to have a permit to accept food waste from the public – including meat and dairy -- and it got that about three years ago.
A recent pilot composting program that allowed people who signed up to drop off anything that could be eaten was so successful that the City decided to make it permanent.
"We took in about 150,000 pounds of food waste. During that process, commercial was probably, I would say, 50% to 60% of it. They had a lot of food waste coming in," Krug said. "We have food waste coming in from certain commercial partners still, but I would say that we've tipped that a little bit. But mostly what we're taking in now is residential that we're picking up from our sites, which is great that they're loving that program, that they're excited that it's going to be a permanent fixture of our recycling sites."
She said they’re starting to see people dropping off more compost at all of their drop-off sites – Lone Pine, Franklin and the YWRC.
The City has covered buckets available for anyone who wants one or you can use your own. Krug suggests freezing compost until you’re ready to drop it off if you’re worried about the smell. All stickers should be removed from fruit and vegetable peels as well as any twist ties. Make sure any bags you include have the word “compostable” on them. You can even drop off moldy bread. There’s a list of what’s accepted and what’s not on the City’s website.
The composting process itself is fascinating. Here’s how it works.
"There's a lot of micro(organisms) and macroorganisms inside these piles that are doing all of the heavy lifting for us," Krug said. "We're just helping them along by turning it, by adding water. Those microorganisms are what are breaking down this material and turning it into really nutrient dense compost. And that's what we love to see is that we're kind of working with nature in a pretty natural way."
One surprising fact that this reporter learned – sweet gum balls, while they’re accepted yard waste – take forever to break down in a compost pile. Several were scattered on the ground next to the piles.
The odor when you’re around the compost is earthy. Krug likes the smell – it reminds her of the good that’s being done out here and that the piles are breaking down as they should. One of the biggest reasons for doing a program like Dish to Dirt, according to Krug, is to keep food waste out of the landfill.
"To me, processes like this and programs like this are just imperative to cities especially like ours who own a landfill," she said. "So in our most recent waste study that we did, we found that the amount of food waste going into our landfill increased pretty significantly. So if you would've asked me two years ago, we were at around 12% of what was going into our landfill. Our most recent study shows that it's about 20% so it's the largest quantity of material actually entering our landfill."
That food waste takes a very long time to decompose, she said. But when it’s composted, it turns into a beneficial product.
"We're going to see the benefits to our soil. We're also going to see — I mean, there's certainly some great carbon benefits to applying compost to our yards because that's a carbon sequestration mechanism as well," she said. "So this is always going to be a better choice than simply throwing it in your trash can. It just takes an extra step."
Composting also reduces the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere, thus helping to reduce global warming. That’s because food waste contributes to methane generation when it sits in a landfill.
And the finished product is available for sale to help fund the program and to benefit area gardeners. It can be purchased by the bag or in bulk – including truck loads. There are also delivery options available.
But Krug also encourages everyone to try to reduce food waste in the first place. She said to shop smart and plan your meals. And store food properly – Environmental Services has advice on their website for what products to store on which refrigerator shelf. Also, don’t store onions and potatoes next to one another, and treat herbs like flowers – put their stems in water.
And if you want to start your own composting pile, the department offers classes twice a year, which offers participants a closed composting system.
