WAKE COUNTY, N.C. – April 22 is Earth Day, a day that’s been recognized all over the world since 1970, raising awareness for environmental protection. One positive thing you can do for the planet is to compost.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), food is the most common material sent to landfills in the United States representing about 24% of solid waste. However, only 5% of wasted food is composted.
For more than a decade, a Raleigh based company known as CompostNow has been on a mission to make composting more accessible. In turn, across all of its locations, the company says it’s diverted more than 66 million pounds of waste from landfills.
Elvis Cedillos is the commercial support manager for CompostNow.
“We got started 13 years ago with the simple idea that if we remove the common barriers that are preventing people from composting, that more people would start doing it,” Cedillos said.
CompostNow is rooted in Raleigh but has grown to serve the Triangle area, Asheville and even other cities outside the Tar Heel state. The company offers compost pick up services for individual homes, businesses and universities.
“Weighing each [container] is very important because every month we provide a detailed report to our members of their overall impact over time,” Cedillos said.
Cedillos has been working with CompostNow for a few years and says he really believes in their mission.
“People should know that composting is a lot easier than it looks. It's not rocket science but it is science,” Cedillos said. “When we waste food, we're also wasting all the water and the energy that went into growing that food, packaging it, transporting it, distributing it.”
CompostNow workers also haul away bins full of food scraps that are collected at Wake County Convenience Center sites.
“As a program as a whole, [Wake County has] diverted over 1.6 million pounds of compostables from the landfill that would have otherwise gone there to rot and create a lot of carbon dioxide and methane, which is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide,” Cedillos said.
Cedillos says they sort through the bins to make sure only compostable items are inside.
“That's any sort of food, meat, cheese. Basically, our rule of thumb is if it grows, it goes into the container,” Cedillos said.
Then they work with processors to turn all the collected waste into nutrient rich compost, which can be returned to the earth through gardening and landscaping, a full circle moment.
“Composting also helps us to strengthen our soil systems to make sure that we have a resilient local food system that everyone can enjoy,” Cedillos said.
“I think that [composting] is becoming more well-known, more mainstream and it's also very important in areas like North Carolina and some of the other communities that we service, because there's no existing mandates right now that are compelling people to compost. So whenever you choose to compost, either at home with a pile or with compost now or another service provider, you're doing a lot to increase the visibility of composting and make it even more prevalent,” Cedillos said.
If you’re not sure about what can be composted, there are usually signs at collection sites with a list of what can and can’t go in the bins.
Cedillos said one common mistake is that people often forget to take the stickers off produce.
Wake County has compost collection bins at three different convenience centers as well as at two farmers markets.
You can dump items directly into the bins or you can bag items up in BPI certified compostable bags, which are offered at the Wake County Convenience Centers for free.
Many areas across North Carolina have piloted free compositing services, including New Hanover County, the city of Greensboro, the town of Davidson in Mecklenburg County, the town of Cary and Buncombe County.
Composting can also be done right in your backyard, if you have the space. The EPA and NC State University have resources available on their websites if you’d like to learn more about composting at home.
