A Clark County program to divert meals waste from the landfill is placing “black gold” by turning the area’s meals scraps right into a wealthy, darkish compost able to including vitamins again into the soil.
We Compost is a partnership amongst Clark County Stable Waste, Waste Connections and native organizations, church buildings and companies that gives Clark County residents who don’t have curbside compost companies drop-off websites the place they’ll eliminate meals scraps.
In 2024, this system helped hold greater than 50,000 kilos of meals waste out of the native landfill.
“It’s important to keep food out of the landfill because it can’t decompose the way we want it,” mentioned Celina Montgomery of Clark County Inexperienced Enterprise.
In a closed landfill atmosphere, meals waste can not decompose naturally to turn into the dear “black gold” compost coveted by gardeners, Montgomery mentioned.
As an alternative, meals waste languishes contained in the landfill, ultimately contributing to the area’s greenhouse fuel emissions.
“When organic material like food waste ends up in a municipal landfill system, it creates a gas called methane and that methane can exacerbate climate change,” Camille Shelton with Clark County Inexperienced Neighbors mentioned in a video about this system. “When we send our food scraps to a municipal compost facility instead of a municipal landfill we’re able to cycle those nutrients back into the soil.”
Based on Clark County, about 22 % of the nation’s rubbish is definitely meals waste that could possibly be became nutrient-rich compost. In 2021, Clark County residents and companies generated an estimated 35,000 tons of meals waste.
“That’s 70 million pounds of reusable organic material going to the landfill in one year,” based on the county’s We Compost video.
The We Compost program gives greater than a dozen food-waste drop-off websites the place Clark County residents can dump their meals scraps — together with bones, dairy and meat — into a set bin certain for Grime Hugger, a industrial composting facility situated in Dallesport within the Columbia River Gorge.
There, the mash of uneaten produce, dairy, meat, bones and different meals scraps is transformed right into a soil-amending compost, which may also help gasoline future meals development.
Meat, bones, dairy
“This is an opportunity available to everybody in Clark County,” Montgomery mentioned, including that this system hopes to open extra food-waste drop-off websites.
“We would love to get two or three hubs in Camas and go into Washougal, La Center and more rural areas,” Montgomery mentioned.
Though Vancouver and Ridgefield each supply curbside food-waste pickups, the service is barely out there to residents of single-family houses inside metropolis limits. Condo residents in Vancouver and Ridgefield — in addition to residents of unincorporated Clark County and those that dwell in different cities — have restricted choices for preserving their meals waste out of the landfill.
Some might select to arrange compost bins in their very own yards, however that limits the kind of scraps that may go into compost bins, Montgomery mentioned.
The inexperienced We Compost food-waste bins, which retailer the meals scraps earlier than they’re despatched to the industrial composting facility, can accommodate any kind of meals waste, together with dairy, meat and bones. The county additionally offers free food-waste bins for individuals to retailer their meals scraps at residence earlier than bringing them to the drop-off hubs. To order a free at-home food-waste bin, go to the We Compost web site at clarkgreenneighbors.org/we-compost.
“We’ll take anything that was food,” Montgomery mentioned. “If you used it to contribute to a meal, save it. We want it in our food carts.”
Within the county’s video, Grime Hugger co-founder Pierce Louis asks that individuals solely dump meals waste into the We Compost program’s food-waste assortment bins.
“If it’s something you would have eaten or it’s part of what you were preparing, please put that in there. But if it’s anything else, maybe a twist tie around a vegetable, or a rubber band or fruit stickers, we ask that those be pulled off,” Louis mentioned.
The We Compost program, which is funded by a state Division of Ecology grant, gives 13 food-waste drop-off hubs, together with 9 within the Vancouver metro space, two in Battle Floor, one in Camas and a brand new web site in Brush Prairie. A 14th web site, in Ridgefield, additionally is anticipated to come back on-line this 12 months.
The Camas web site, situated close to a bus cease on Northwest Parker Avenue, exterior the TSMC Washington semiconductor facility, previously often known as WaferTech, had an uncommon starting.
The compost web site was initially solely out there to TSMC workers, however Montgomery mentioned it didn’t catch on.
Final summer time, the hub moved exterior TSMC and have become out there to most of the people. Now, the Camas web site is a well-liked drop-off spot for individuals hoping to maintain their meals scraps out of the landfill, Montgomery mentioned.
“People are very excited about putting their food waste into the carts,” Montgomery advised Camas Metropolis Council members throughout a presentation concerning the We Compost program on the council’s Jan. 21 workshop. “We would love to establish a second, third or fourth hub in Camas and hope to keep increasing use at the TSMC Washington hub.”
Camas origins
The We Compost program’s recognition in Camas is smart contemplating town was the place the seed of the county’s food-waste assortment program was first planted.
In 2021, Camas resident Kristin Yoshimura helped launch a free food-waste pickup service at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church following her commencement from Clark County’s composter-recycler schooling program.
She mentioned Pete DuBois, Clark County’s composter-recycler program supervisor, wished to see if individuals can be extra more likely to compost their meals waste if that they had a free, handy drop-off web site.
Yoshimura, who attended and labored at St. Thomas in 2021, satisfied church leaders to check DuBois’ group composting concept.
“We got the word out on our social media sites and reached out to all the neighbors,” Yoshimura mentioned. “And we got a really great response.”
The St. Thomas pilot undertaking helped launch Clark County’s Congregation to Compost program, which might ultimately morph into the We Compost group composting hub program out there to Clark County residents at the moment.
Since 2021, the county’s group composting packages have diverted an estimated 100,000 kilos of meals waste from the landfill, with greater than half of that diversion occurring in 2024, when We Compost leaders made a concentrated push to publicize this system and increase its attain exterior the Vancouver metro space.
“We had a boom in 2024, when we diverted more than 52,000 pounds of food waste,” Montgomery mentioned. “We’re trying to make it easy for people who have a lack of access … and we’re getting more information out to the community.”