Waste Not!
The Story of What We Don’t Eat on Cape Cod
I still have scars on my knee from tripping in the driveway that fateful summer night. Just me, the peepers, and perhaps a few hiding raccoons (definitely about to chase me, right?) stalking about the night in the warm, wet air as I attempted to take out the compost. I was an imaginative child, and this was my least favorite chore. Aside from putting myself under the siege of night beasts, I was super grossed-out by it, and, I was lazy.
Years later, in spring 2017, I indulged in a local screening of Wasted! The Story of Food Waste, of which I only caught the last 25 minutes. Regardless, this was when I picked up a stunning fact that I have pondered, and repeated (whether solicited or not) to just about every wide-eyed human that I have interacted with since: it can take up to 25 years for a head of lettuce to decompose anaerobically in a landfill. The methane produced in this process is 23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
I knew throwing food into a landfill was wasteful, especially when we could be feeding it to animals or delivering it back to the soil, but I had no idea how detrimental to the environment such a simple act can be.
Food waste may be evaluated most comprehensively as a three-phase issue. Producers or growers; points of sale; and end consumers each represent a stage where food is wasted along the supply chain. And not in small quantities; research shows time and again that in America we still waste about one-third of all food that we produce. The majority of food waste is represented by the humble fruits and veggies that are most nutritious for our bodies. This sad but true fact can be explored in more depth in many contemporary books and videos. In fact there are entire shelves devoted to the topic at the Falmouth Public Library. I decided to explore all three levels of food waste and how they pertain to our food waste practices here on Cape Cod.
Cape Codders, may be familiar by now with Falmouth local compost hero Mary Ryther, founder of Compost with Me. Ryther lived the life of an architectural designer for 25 years, eventually hitting a point in her career where she was no longer feeling satisfied. She longed to find a more sustainable way to do business. Whatever she embarked upon would include the salvaging of materials, and eventually she decided to go with food scraps. She and her team pick up compost around town and eventually introduce it, along with yard waste, into the custom made, locally-built Compost Sifter 2.0, where it is repeatedly jumbled during its tenure of decomposition on her property. Mary says it takes about six months for compost to become usable, bagged black gold soil. All of her soil is tested for nutrient composition and pH level at Penn State and it is some of the highest-grade soil you can get on the market.
Ryther’s wealth of knowledge is as robust as the microbes in her soil when it comes to food waste and local regulations. She explained that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection now mandates that any entity producing more than one ton of food waste per week is no longer allowed to deposit this waste in a landfill. However, many franchises are able to escape these rules based on loopholes allowing one entity to be considered one location, even if all of the food is cooked at one central location.
If you are curious about the food waste generators in the state of Massachusetts, the DEP has a web page where you can index all entities producing food waste and find out their practices. This list includes all hospitals and nursing homes, but not schools. Here is some lower Cape school info I found:
Recently the Mashpee Public School System reached out to Compost with Me regarding their food waste. Now two of their schools have food sorting stations which are delegated partially to Compost With Me for a weekly pick up. Another local school participating in the Compost with Me pick-up program is the Woods Hole Child Center. Falmouth Academy has a composting program located on-premise at their school, and Mullen Hall Food Garden, run by local permaculturist and mama Julia Leshin, also devotes a site to their making their own compost.
Residents interested in salvaging their food scraps, without composting at home, can sign up with Compost With Me for a weekly pick up. For a small fee these composters will, in turn, will be presented with large bags of that heady black gold soil.
Home composters needn’t fear throwing just about anything food-related into their compost piles. Turns out, some things CAN just be easy! “It all just wants to go back to the earth!” states local herbalist and organic gardener, Lauren Valle. Valle started composting in her early twenties while she working on a dairy farm in Vermont and later in Brooklyn, New York, right under her own sink! She even had a vermiculture operation in her tiny urban apartment. These days she has graduated to the creation of her small organic homestead in Teaticket, complete with a medicinal herb garden, chicken coop and sweetly organized composting situation. An oasis of sustainability, she now is able to create much of her own organic soil. Valle has a natural way about her and she recommends keeping things simple when it comes to making your own soil from compost: adding yard waste to food scraps for a 30:1 nitrogen to carbon ratio. Valle provides classes to educate home gardeners about soil composition through her business Kinship Herbal and Holistic Healing, located in Waquoit.
One day, while pursuing local greens and parsnips, I began chatting with Dylan Girourad, the vibrant, bearded produce manager of OM Market in the Mashpee Commons. I learned from him that sometimes fresh food waste is not always readily accepted by food pantries on the Cape. Said Girourad, “As you know, we only sell organic produce here, with a concentration on local items. We once were sent a large box of conventional Fuji apples, they were in perfect condition, however, they were not a product we could sell here. I called five different service centers on Cape and nobody was able to accept them.” Fortunately, there are other waste avenues for produce managers like Girourad. “We give most of our produce to local animal farms when we can, and when that isn’t an option we can give it to farmers to compost.”
When I called at Shaw’s in Falmouth to ask about their waste practices I was a bit nervous. It was one of the larger chains that I approached for food waste information and I was expecting the worst. I was very pleasantly surprised when the manager gave me the rundown regarding their zero-waste intentional practice. The produce that is “on its way out” gets picked up once per week by a local pig farmer who uses it as feed. Shaw’s used to pay him to come pick up, but now he comes for free to feed his piggies. The meat that is nearing its expiration, as well as other oily and greasy things in stock, are separated and sent off to a soap maker. Lastly, Shaw’s gives their packaged and canned food to the Service Center on Gifford Street in Falmouth, a place where many locals in need go to access food. On a semi-food related note, Shaw’s recycles all plastic, glass and cardboard. I feel good about shopping at Shaw’s, knowing that I am supporting a large company that cares about the environment. From what I learned, there is a home for everything that passes through Shaw’s.
I kept hearing about the Falmouth Service Center, so I paid a visit there one afternoon with a friend they would probably consider a frequent shopper. Walking in with said friend, I kind of felt like a local celeb. Everyone there knows him and his dog on a first-name basis. As he perused the cans, boxes and small selection of fresh produce I became interested in what was going on in their freezer. I saw some bags of fish that looked kitschy, almost homemade, so I had to ask about them. Come to find out the Service Center is stocked with locally caught mackerel and dogfish loins courtesy of the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Alliance.
In a final attempt to get up close and personal with local food waste, I glided down the cherry blossom lined-streets on a humid morning on bicycle with Bret Folger, the main hauler for Compost with Me. After a lot of shuffling bikes and wrenching together a wagon for Matt’s Mom’s Bike (the one Folger rides) we’re off. We navigated the route relatively effortlessly, and I could see from my following position that Folger’s calf muscles have been hauling their fair share of compost around town.
One of the things I find most endearing about Compost with Me is that it truly is a family affair. The Old Christmas Tree farm where the ever-changing piles are relegated and moved belongs to Mary Ryther’s mom. Bikes are switched around among family members to pick up compost at Matt’s parents' house. Matt is a distant cousin of Folger. The customers are all happy to see Folger as he comes for pickup on garbage day, to keep things easy for composters to remember. Both Folger and Ryther commented that although they may refer to their compost as black gold none of them got into the compost business to get rich. I highly recommend their service, and by joining them, in lieu of throwing your food scraps into the landfill one can be of service to Mother Earth.
Learning about the food waste practices of my home reminded me that we are of this earth, and someday we will return to it, just like the cantaloupe rinds and coffee grounds. Let us do our parts in facilitating this process in the most reasonable, helpful way possible so that we may conserve our land for future generations.
