From garbage to garden: help us expand our free, weekly residential food waste collections to at least 8 New Orleans Public Library sites. Our goal: 100,000 pounds diverted from the landfill in 2018.
Leader
Lynne Serpe
Location
219 Loyola Avenue New Orleans, LA 70112
Once we have secured enough funding, we will:
1) Work with local urban farm youth programs to find potential interns to help staff food waste collections
2) Place advertisements for part-time staff in local green-friendly outlets
3) Hire four part-time staff or interns who will each be responsible for covering 3 weekly shifts every month, plus one outreach shift from January - May.
4) Train and supervise part-time staff in how to interact with residents dropping off their scraps, and library users passing by who may have questions
5) Promote the food waste collection program and new drop-off sites via flyers, email newtorks, social media, Facebook ads and -- of course - word of mouth.
6) Collect thousands of pounds of food waste every month!
7) Work with Schmelly's and local urban farms and gardens to compost the food waste (or feed to farm animals) we deliver
8) Host at least one free educational program at the library during International Compost Awareness Week about DIY composting at home, including vermiculture (I sometimes bring a traveling worm bin to show the kids)
Compost NOW (New Orleans Waste) was launched in January 2017 at two library sites; by the end of the year we were at five library sites with demand growing in neighborhoods throughout the city.
We would like to host collection programs at a minimum of eight different locations, six days a week. Our composters are wonderful people; we want to make it easy and convenient for them to drop-off their frozen food waste each week.
New Orleans has always been known as foodie town, long celebrating "locally sourced" food. Our growing green movement has seen a huge increase in solar panels and bike lanes post-Katrina, but we do not have curbside glass recycling much less a municipal residential food waste program.
While there are many excellent people working towards a municipal program "some day", I knew from experience that the community did not need to wait!
I approached the New Orleans Public Library about allowing Compost NOW to host free, weekly food waste collections based on a successful program which I started and ran for years -- and which is still ongoing at Queens Library.
I found an excellent partner in Schmelly's Dirt Farm who makes sure the food waste is transported to local farms and turned into nutrient-rich compost or fed to the farm pigs and hogs!
Not everyone has the time or interest in maintaining their own compost bin, and many renters have no access to outdoor space. This project allows everyone the opportunity to easily divert their food waste from the landfill while knowing the resulting compost will be used to improve soil being used to grow healthy food locally.