ROC City Compost Pilot

My wife and I have been composting counter waste and yard clippings at home for a number of years. Our composting journey began back in 2006 with a home-made composting pit built with our kids, and evolved into a purchased covered composting bin in 2013. Eventually we purchased a service to pick up our compostable waste weekly. At the start of this summer, the opportunity to be part of the free City of Rochester's community composting pilot program presented itself and we took advantage of it.

Our participation in the pilot resulted in a new wrinkle being added to my weekly Wednesday routine as, unlike the paid service, the pilot requires participants to drop-off of their individual filled buckets, provided at no-cost, to one two locations. The official documentation regarding the pilot posted on the City of Rochester’s website succinctly, and accurately, describes the experience: “City staff will sign you in, weigh your bucket of food waste, empty it and hand it back to you so that you can continue to collect food waste and drop-off on a weekly basis.” It really was that simple and oddly enjoyable to view the scale numbers come up to judge growth from the previous week. I would envision that as we, and others, become more acclimated with the list of potentially compostable contents, the weekly weights will continue to rise.

I also observed another possible benefits of the nescient pilot: the potential to extend beyond the possibility of further limiting greenhouses gases and into community and culture building. The professionals staffing the table were very helpful in assisting/educating folks with navigating the process if there was any confusion. As these were the same folks as the previous week, and only the second week of drop-off, it was nice that they remembered who I was and created a nice opportunity for developing a sense of community among the composters. (They engaged the person who stopped in immediately after me, so this interaction did feel felt sincere.)

This new opportunity is a far cry from the chicken wire pit we put up 12(!) years ago, and though we still use the compost bin for grass clipping and leaves, the opportunity to have food waste taken away is for composting eliminates the possible concerns of rodents and bugs finding there ways into the yard. As with any pilot, there are sure to be hiccups and challenges to be addressed and systems to be refined (thus the term "pilot"). However, two weeks into the pilot, the program, and culture building around composting, is to off to a solid start.