Coming Full Circle

The topic of food composting is heating up, in more ways than one, and not just in Durango but around the country. Not only did the City of Durango recently participate in a citywide composting trial, but it appears the State of Colorado and the Biden administration are also hopping aboard the composting truck, so to speak.

In 2023, state legislators passed a bill requiring the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to study the impacts and feasibility of requiring diversion of organic materials from landfills. The goal is to come away with steps local governments can take to reduce food waste and increase organic waste recycling in their communities. The CDPHE will be submitting its findings to lawmakers by Aug. 1, if not sooner.

Meanwhile, on June 12, the Biden administration released its “National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics.” The aim of the initiative, the first of its kind, is to help the United States meet its target to halve food loss and waste by 2030. The administration has pledged more than $200 million toward that target.

While reducing food waste and loss can save people money, the biggest driver in the composting charge is, of course, climate change. According to the EPA, landfills are the country’s third-largest source of methane – the potent greenhouse gas that is emitted from rotting food and other organic waste in landfills. And an estimated 58 percent of that methane comes from food waste. In fact, food waste in the United States creates the greenhouse gas equivalent of 50 million cars.

Composting, or food recycling, however, prevents methane emissions through aerobic decomposition, as methane-producing microbes are not active in the presence of oxygen. In addition, its byproduct – a rich soil amendment – can be put directly back into the earth and used to grow more food, thus closing the ecological loop.

Ahead of the curve

Fortunately for Durango, it is already in this loop.

“A huge chunk of methane emissions comes from food waste,” Taylor Hanson, co-owner of local composting service Table to Farm, said recently. “When it comes to fighting climate change, composting is low-hanging fruit.”

Started in 2015, Table to Farm has grown from the days when co-owner Monique DiGiorgio used to bring food scraps to her house into a 4.5-acre full-blown facility near Elmore’s Corner. In addition, it has gone from just 110 customers in 2018 to 800 today. Part of that bump came from Table to Farm’s partnership with the City of Durango this past spring. Using a grant from the CDPHE, new customers were offered free composting for two months. About 800 households signed up, with about 40% staying on after the free trial was over. Once the pilot program concluded, the City followed up with a survey to gauge participants’’ thoughts on composting long-term.

“Composting aligns with the goals of the City’s Sustainability Plan, which was adopted in 2022,” Marty Pool, the City’s sustainability manager said. “The City is looking at expanding into composting service and exploring different options to see how it fits into the City’s sustainability picture.”

First and foremost, Pool pointed out that reducing consumption is the first step in reducing food waste – in other words, don’t let your eyes supersize for your stomach. But after that, diverting food from the landfill is the next logical choice. 

“The next step is to divert and use that food waste in a circular economy – using microbes to recycle,” he said.

So far, nine states and a handful of communities in Colorado already require composting, including Denver and Boulder. However, before Durango can implement such a program, it must first be approved by the City Council. That’s where the recent pilot program came in – the follow-up study will determine if, in fact, folks are interested in citywide composting and what the biggest hurdles are. Pool said he plans to present his findings to council later this summer, but there are some key takeaways. For starters, he said participants seemed to be widely dispersed across the demographics spectrum.

“It was really cool to see, we had all ages, renters, homeowners, and all income levels,” he said.

However, what united most of them in their desire to compost was environmental concerns.

“They said they didn’t want food waste going into the landfill, which was somewhat expected,” he said.

In addition, most respondents said about $15/month was an acceptable rate for composting services. Currently, Table to Farm, which is the only commercial composting facility in the region, charges $28/month for their composting angels to empty out your green bucket weekly. However, given the feedback of the survey, the company immediately responded, offering bi-weekly pickup for $18/month. Folks can also drop their buckets off at a compost kiosk for $5/week.

This is just one of the ways Table to Farm is pivoting to increase compositing accessibility and capacity on a local level.

“The whole point is to get the entire community composting,” said DiGiorgio. 

Ramping up

With growth in mind, DiGiorgio said about a year ago, Table to Farm really started to ramp up its efforts. In addition to going through the arduous CDPHE process to become certified a Class III facility – one of only 16 in the state – they also expanded operations and secured federal grants to buy a windrow turner (think John Deere tractor meets transformer). For compost newbs, “windrows” are the rows of compost in the field that, prior to the motorized turner, had to be turned laboriously by hand.

“With the new turner, we can make compost faster,” said Hanson. “Before it took six to eight months, now it’s closer to three to six months.”

And more compost means more composting products, including bags of garden amendment as well as “erosion logs,” which are used by customers like CDOT for reseeding, and stormwater and erosion control.  

An added bonus to closing the “circular economy,” DiGiorgio said, is that instead of trucking these items here from far-off places – and producing even more emissions in the process –  they’re produced and used right in La Plata County. And, she said she only sees demand growing. In addition to its residential customers, Table to Farm has several commercial customers as well, including Durango Joe’s, Ska and Fort Lewis College. They also recently announced plans to expand to Pagosa Springs, which is running low on landfill space, offering curbside and kiosk pick up.

The recent moves statewide and nationally to ramp up food waste recycling has only helped the momentum.

“The announcement (from the Biden administration) was a total surprise,” DiGiorgio said. “But we are really pleased by the tremendous amount of state and federal efforts. We’re just going to see more and more support.” 

Conversation starter

And as that support grows, DiGiorgio and Hanson say they’re ready for all your moldy, messy, slimy scraps (yes, even small quantities of meat as well as pesky avocado pits, salad dressing and even stale bread.)

“We are ready to supply any policy the City has,” said DiGiorgio. “We’ve been anticipating this.”

In other words, it looks like the composting bucket has been kicked back to the City’s curb. 

For Pool’s part, he said he sees composting just as, if not more, important than recycling. However it will take the scrap-saving citizens of Durango to put this on their, uh, “bucket list” (sorry).

“It’s up to people to share their opinions with Council,” Pool said. One potential option would be to have residents “opt-in” to the service for an additional fee on their monthly utility bill.

“It’s mirroring what we saw with recycling years ago, which now is just part of what we do,” he said. “Now, we need to have the conversation about compost.”