At 10:37 AM 7/19/2008 -0400, you wrote: >One thing in our favor, and it isn't trivial, is that it is downhill from >those outlying growing areas into the city. Of course, the nutrients >transported in the form of food should make their way back to the land to >close the loop, something we are far from dealing with.
Dear Joel, Sarah and Friends--Although I have been composting for years, I only recently completed the Spring training session of the CCETC Master Composter program. One of my goals as a compost educator is to go to various neighborhoods in Ithaca (I live in the flats) and develop neighborhood scale composting programs. The compost generated could be used by local gardeners, but some of it could also be cycled back to local farmers, so this would close the urban loop you mentioned above of food to market(s) in town and nutrients from food scraps --> compost back to the farm. I like this idea better than the San Francisco model of waste haulers taking domestic food scraps and processing them at a large commercial compost facility. The commercial compost facility needs to sell the compost at a fair market price to make money. Most of the commercial compost produced locally doesn't go to local farms, who probably couldn't afford to purchase it, or wouldn't want to purchase it. Keeping the nutrient cycle very local would be a very good thing, especially as we plunge deeper into the pending energy descent. So if you live in the City and you would be interested in hosting a set of compost bins for your block or neighborhood, please let me know and I can work with you to get it going. Have a wonderful day. Tom P.S.: I suppose you could have an electric motor assist retrofitted to an appropriately geared down 4-wheel bike/truck* so that it would be easier to get the load of compost back up the hills to the farm. The farmers could also help the urbanites by supplying some of the browns needed for the downtown neighborhood compost systems as well as food items. The batteries for the electric assist would be recharged by wind or solar power generated back at the farm so that no coal-fired electricity would be needed. Perhaps there could be a cooperative ownership program developed, similar to Ithaca Car Share, that would own the 4-wheel bike/trucks and look after maintenance, solar charging systems, etc. This cooperative would be collectively owned and operated by the people getting food from the farmers (some sort of CSA or market share program (?) as well as direct sales at markets), the farmers themselves, and the people providing maintenance services. The use of the 4-wheel bike/trucks would be shared amongst the participants, similar to the extended family sharing gasoline powered pickups that George described in his post. An additional benefit of the electric motor assist is that no one would ever have to use any of the free coupons I mentioned in my previous post. ;>) *A few examples of the many models available, in no particular order of relevance: http://www.lightfootcycles.com/trmodel.htm http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm http://organicengines.com/lazy-index.php?file=SUV_and_Pedicab/SUV_mods/ http://www.workcycles.com/workbike/bicycles/professional-worktrikes/workbike-classic-open-dutch-transport-bike.html ****************************************** Tom Shelley 118 E. Court St. Ithaca, NY 14850 607 342-0864 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Compost Educator and General Sustainability Geek _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
