Composting for Community

In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, ILSR’s Jordan Ashby is joined by recipients of ILSR’s 2024 Composting for Community Mini-Grant Program, Victor Perez, compost educator at Garden Time, and Carla Doughty, Executive Director of Zero Waste Providence. Garden Time, Inc. prepares incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals for the plant-based green industry workforce, equi...

In this episode, Terry Craghead, founder and CEO of Fertile Ground Cooperative, joins ILSR’s host Jordan Ashby on the Composting for Community podcast to share how Fertile Ground went from competing on Big Waste’s terms to creating a new set of terms altogether. Since 2011, Fertile Ground Cooperative has been creating local jobs, educating their community, strengthening neighborhood ties, and buil...

On May 16, 2012, Vermont passed Act 148, creating a first-of-its-kind Universal Recycling Law. This historic law requires three categories of material to be separated and recycled: “blue bin” recyclables (such as plastics, paper, and glass), leaf and yard debris, and food scraps. The food diversion requirement was phased in from 2014 to 2020, beginning with the largest generators with closest prox...

How can we ensure composting is made accessible for all communities? How can composters implement the highest standards possible to prevent rodents in those communities? And what questions do the recent cuts to the NYC Compost Project raise that all composting advocates should be considering? In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we are joined by Domingo Morales, founder of Comp...

In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we are joined by Kourtnii Brown, founder and director of Common Compost (Oakland, California) and CEO of the California Alliance for Community Composting. We discuss the immense potential of community composting to scale up and meet diversion goals based on the findings of the Community Composting for Green Spaces (CCGS) 2021/22 pilot progra...

What do we lose when we no longer have control over what happens to the waste we produce? In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we speak to Melissa Corichi of Let It Rot, a community composting business in Palm Beach County in South Florida about her battle against the incinerators in her community.

What role does composting play in subverting barriers to local food sovereignty? In this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, we are joined by Khari Diop, an environmental educator, food security activist, and fifth-generation food grower from Atlanta.

How can a community reeling from multiple economic shocks use composting as a tool to build a more resilient food system? ILSR’s Linda Bilsens Brolis talks to Renee V. Wallace of Detroit about composting as a tool for building equity and solving big challenges.

ILSR’s Jess Del Fiacco and Brenda Platt talk to three community composters in California who have been impacted by solid waste franchise districts.

In this episode, host Sophia Hosain is joined by Composting for Community’s intern Alondra Sierra and Elinor Crescenzi, an activist, organizer, and a founding member of the Food Cycle Collective in Pomona, California. Elinor talks about Pomona’s collaborative community composting movement and the power that bike-hauling has to build meaningful connections in the community.  Listen to the full epis...

In this episode, host Sophia Hosain is joined by Composting for Community’s intern Alondra Sierra and Nando Rodriguez, environmental facilitator at The Brotherhood Sister Sol in Harlem, New York. Nando shares with us the various ways he engages youth in composting activities. He also dives into the role that environmental practices for Black and Latinx youth play in helping preserve and honor thei...

On this episode of the Composting for Community Podcast, ILSR’s Linda Bilsens Brolis and Sophia Hosain speak with Emma Jagoz, owner of Moon Valley Farm in Maryland. They discuss the role compost has played in supporting the growth of their community-supported, first generation farm that is growing certified organic vegetables and herbs for Maryland and Washington, D.C.  Listen to the full episode...

On this episode, ILSR’s Brenda Platt dialogues with Michael Bradlee, President of Earth Appliance Organics in Providence, Rhode Island, to discuss how one community composter is continuing to collect and compost food scraps with new safety protocols in place. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. https://ilsr.org/artic...

On this episode, guest host Brenda Platt talks with Elsa Higby and Aleks Jagiello of the New York Compost Project Hosted by Queens Botanical Garden. This is Part 2 of ILSR’s discussion with them; to catch the first part, head over to our Building Local Power Podcast. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. https://ilsr.o...

On this episode, I’m joined by Benny Erez of ECO City Farms, who I consider to be a composting mentor. Benny talks about the role ECO City Farms plays in providing affordable fresh produce in two food insecure neighborhoods near Washington, D.C. We discuss his compost training work locally in the D.C. Metro Area and abroad in Zambia, Ghana, and Palestine. Listen to the full episode and explore mor...

Host Linda Bilsens Brolis sat down with Marvin Hayes of the Baltimore Compost Collective for an inspiring conversation about the future of small-scale composting in Baltimore. Marvin and Linda talk about how the Baltimore Compost Collective is empowering and employing local youth while also revitalizing South Baltimore, creating quality compost and fighting food deserts.  Listen to the full episod...

On this episode, host Linda Bilsens Brolis is joined by Jeffrey Neal of Loop Closing. They discuss his vision for how small-scale, hyper-local composting can handle all of the food waste produced in Washington, DC, and the support needed to realize it. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. https://ilsr.org/articles/how...

On this episode, host Linda Bilsens Brolis is joined by Marvin Hayes of the Baltimore Compost Collective. Marvin and Linda talk about how the Baltimore Compost Collective is empowering and employing local youth while also creating a model that can be replicated throughout the City of Baltimore to create a distributed composting infrastructure.   Listen to the full episode and explore more resource...

On this episode, host Linda Bilsens Brolis is joined by Domingo Morales and Kenneth Young of Red Hook Community Farm. Domingo and Kenneth talk about the power of being exposed to urban agriculture and composting at a young age and the importance of getting the community involved in your composting project. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and sum...

On this episode, host Linda Bilsens Brolis is joined by Michael Robinson, Co-Founder of Rust Belt Riders. Michael (pictured, third from left) explains how Rust Belt Riders is closing the local food system loop in Cleveland by collecting food scraps from restaurants and creating compost and soil blends for local food production. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — includin...

 On this episode, Host Linda Bilsens-Brolis is joined by Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli, Director of Common Ground Compost. They talk about how Common Ground Compost is helping businesses in NYC comply with local composting and recycling regulations and embrace Zero Waste. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summary of the conversation. https://ilsr...

On this episode, host Linda Bilsens Brolis is joined by Michael Martinez, Founder and Executive Director of LA Compost. Linda and Michael talk about how LA Compost is building a diverse ecosystem of composting hubs that are facilitating community involvement in and ownership of their local food systems. Listen to the full episode and explore more resources below — including a transcript and summar...

In this episode, we talk with Tiffany Bess, Founder of Apple Rabbit Compost in Jacksonville, FL. Apple Rabbit Compost is a one-woman show that is changing the narrative around food waste to help nourish a more vibrant community from the ground up. They are the beginning of the composting movement in Jacksonville and are currently serving residents and a few restaurants in Jacksonville’s Urban Core...

We talk with Kat Nigro, General Manager of Durham, NC-based Tilthy Rich Compost. Tilthy Rich, a bike-powered food scrap hauler, aims to make composting a common practice accessible to everyone in their hometown of Durham. … Read More

In this episode, we talk with Corinne Coe-Law, Co-Founder and Director of the Atlanta-based Terra Nova Compost Cooperative. Terra Nova Compost aims to teach underserved communities the value and importance of soil building as it relates to urban agriculture, food justice and climate change. Corinne also led ILSR’s first national replication of its Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders composter training pr...