Over 100,000 US tons reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent!

Today we collected 132.4lbs of kitchen scraps and we cannot thank our participating households enough.  We are approaching the 6 month mark of when we started this project and through trial and error and continual learning we are making real headway.  We now have 3 giant compost piles in varying degrees of break down and we are excited to report that we may have finally got our carbon:nitrogen mix right as the active piles are generating a lot of heat which means the thermophilic microbes can do their thing.  We believe the addition of the shredded newspaper has really helped our composting recipe - thank you to the Chass household for the endless shredding!  Spring is now here and although the compost is not ready yet we do not think we have that long to wait.  The aim of this project is not only to produce compost but also to help our environment - by our estimates our efforts so far have reduced carbon dioxide equivalent buy over 100,000 US tons.  This calculation is based on the weight of the kitchen scraps diverted from landfill and a conversion factor that accounts for the potential methane emissions from landfill over 20 years.  Every little bit helps!