‘A good, green habit,’ How composting is making a difference in Sacramento and beyond

Composting is simple. All you need is a kitchen pail, food scraps and a napkin.

That’s the trick, Robert Reed said. A paper towel at the bottom of the bin can soak up the moisture and smells, keeping the compost pile pleasant-smelling before it’s transferred into the organics bin at the end of the day.

Reed, a spokesman for Recology — a composting, recycle and landfill collection company — has been composting for decades. As a San Francisco resident, Reed sees composting as a way to rebuild society’s connection with the food we eat, as a result of people moving farther and farther away from farms.

“You’re sending your food scraps back to farms, back to where they came from, and you’re sending them back in the form of compost,” Reed said.

With California pushing for more sustainable alternatives and aggressive reforms, composting is becoming more present in the lives of Northern California residents. In a regenerative cycle of farm-to-fork-to-waste — which then turns into compost to be used back at farms — composting is a potential way regular people can contribute to mitigating climate change.

Wasted food is responsible for 58% of landfill methane emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and food is the most common material sent to landfills, totaling 24.1% of municipal solid waste.

Composting, however, is “amazing,” Reed said, because “it keeps materials out of landfills, reduces methane emissions, helps make the soil more healthy and helps protect the climate.”

As a self-proclaimed composting advocate, Reed said,“We often hear about the perspective from the right and we often hear about the perspective from the left.”

“What about the perspective from the environment, from the environment’s point of view?”

Going green in Sacramento

Composting in Sacramento is increasing in accessibility. Every jurisdiction is required to provide organic waste collection services to all residents and businesses per a 2022 law.

It’s an effort to reduce organic waste disposal by 75% by 2025. In accordance with this legislation, Sacramento implemented weekly curbside organics collection in July 2022.

That requires all organic waste like food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard trimmings to be placed into the organics bin, which will then be picked up and transported to one of three affiliated facilities for processing.

The three facilities — Recology, Agromin and Yolo County Central Landfill — were selected through a bidding process, said Jesa David, a communications specialist for the city’s recycling and solid waste division.

In the case of Recology, the city pays for the company to process the organic waste into compost, and charges customers to remove their waste from the curbside containers, David said.

David said the city does not make a profit and only charges for the cost to provide the service.

From waste bin to garden bed

After the organic waste is picked up from city curbs, it is taken to a transfer center.

From there, a truck able to carry 25 tons of the waste will drop it off at either Recology Jepson Prairie Organics or Recology Ostrom Organics.

The Jepson Prairie Organics facility alone gets about 40,000 tons of compostable material from Sacramento, said general manager Kirk Steed.

The jumble of branches, rotten food and spoiled paper will go into a slow speed shredder that churns the items into a loose grind ensuring air gets into the pile, Steed said during a tour of the facility.

The goal is to break down the organic matter in your compost pile and convert that into nutrient-rich soil, but in order to do that, you need microorganisms which are responsible for that, Steed said.

“Kirk and his team are creating the conditions so that the microorganisms can survive. Just like you and me, they need air, water and food,” Reed said.

Following the grinder, the waste is moisture conditioned and put into an aerated static pile. Pipes are placed under the pile that churn air through, ensuring these microorganisms are well-oxygenated.

The compost is kept in those piles for 15 days while a vacuum collects the discharged air, and places it through a bio-filter to treat it for volatile organic compounds and reduce air pollution.

The compost is then put through this curing process again: moisture conditioned and into the aerated static piles for an additional 15 days. All the while, the temperature is controlled to create the optimal environment for the material to break down.

Through this process, it takes 60 days for the original pile of waste to become usable, living compost.

The effect on crops

Before farmer Frank Olagaray began using compost at his Blossom Vineyards and Orchards in Thornton, one of his vineyards was at risk of shutting down.

After adding compost to the soil, Olagaray said, it’s been a 180.

“Now its production has come up to where we’re gonna have to keep it in there for another 10 years,” he said.

Olagaray has been using compost for 20 years, but in the past seven years, he said has seen his crops have a longer lifespan allowing him a greater return on his investment.

When it comes to composting Olagaray said, “It takes a while to build the soil, but then it’s going to be there for a long time.”

William Horwath, a professor of soil biogeochemistry at UC Davis, said that based on his studies he has seen composting allow for more efficient nutrient use by crops, reduce nitrous oxide emissions and increase water-holding capacity of soil.

Under the looming threat of climate change on crop production, Horwath said food security is a top priority. He said that compost can help to stabilize production yields in crops ensuring a steady supply of food.

However, while composting directs less resources to landfills, Horwath said it’s necessary to look at an alternative source of energy to make fertilizer and avoid greenhouse gas emissions.

Agriculture is a complicated industry and while it provides food that people need, it requires fertilizer to do it, Horwath said. Fertilizer which emits greenhouse gasses during its production.

According to Horwath, compost in combination with fertilizer is a more environmentally-sustainable solution for agriculture production, but it will never eliminate the need for fertilizers.

“Everybody wants the lifestyle that they’ve gotten used to now, under what we’ve done with the source of energy that we’ve exclusively used for the last 400 years, and until we change that, then that will address climate change,” he said.