In May, our Environmental Impact Working Group (EIWG) meeting featured special presentations from Ryan Walter of the Compost Crew and Brenda Platt of the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR). Both Brenda and Ryan have been actively involved in increasing community composting in Montgomery County for years, in different yet equally important capacities.
This meeting brought together more than 20 local community members and environmental stakeholders to learn more about successful community composting efforts. The Compost Crew offers curbside collection of food scraps to Montgomery County residents in select zip codes for a small monthly fee. This service allows residents to separate their compostable materials from trash and recycling, and reduce the amount of waste going into the incinerator. In neighboring jurisdictions, such as the town of Falls Church, VA, the local government has worked with Compost Crew to provide free curbside compost collection to residents. Brenda’s work at ILSR has included training Master Composters and implementing composting programs at DC schools. She encourages community composting as a vital component of the “waste reduction hierarchy” and shared about her extensive experience in creating community composting programs throughout the DMV area.
View Brenda’s presentation here: Brenda Platt, ILSR: Community Scale Composting