A Year in Review

A hearty Happy New Year from the Kompost Kids to all our devoted volunteers, committed sponsors, and community supporters. We couldn’t do our work without you. As we turn the corner on 2014, let us pause to share a few of our exciting benchmarks and accomplishments.

Our community compost program diverted over 37,000 pounds (16 metric tons) of kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and other preconsumer items, amounting to an average of more than 3,000 pounds per month. The EPA offers an excellent conversion calculator to help us determine the emissions-equivalence of removing this material from the waste stream, and the figures are appealing. Our 2014 courier program achieved a CO2-equivalent avoidance of 1.23 metric tons not spewing from area landfills. Put another way, our organics diversion pulled the equivalent of 3.19 vehicles off the road for the entire year. Not too shabby.

Added together with our aborted, and yet successful, experiment with scaling up postconsumer organics recovery in Milwaukee, we diverted a total of 30 tons in 2014. This is something for us all to take pride in. There are very few organizations like ours achieving those diversion rates with all-volunteer labor, a tiny budget, and no program staff. Thank you!

In terms of our sponsors, Anodyne takes the gold medal for the largest diversion of 15,543 pounds brought to our community compost sites, to be converted into soil for urban agriculture projects. Lulu and Comet Cafe round out our winner’s circle with another 8,000 pounds between them. These and our other sponsors are leading the way to a new kind of ethical and commercially viable environmentalism, in addition to providing delicious food and drink.

Finally, a special thank you is due to superstar compost courier Bob Aring, who single-handedly diverted nearly 17,000 pounds to our sites on his own time in 2014. Hats off to you, Bob. That’s a remarkable achievement.