Composting

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

Talk about leading by example -- the Maryland Department of the Environment announced Monday that it would begin collecting food scraps at its Baltimore headquarters for composting. The Earth Day announcement comes on the heels of Howard County launching its own food-scrap processing facility, which I covered here for The Baltimore Sun. MDE will give its 900-plus employees the option to compost their uneaten food at the agency's main offices in Montgomery Park. Officials there say they hope in the effort's inaugural year to divert more than 6 tons of waste that might otherwise have gone to an incinerator or landfill.

Talk about leading by example -- the Maryland Department of the Environment announced Monday that it would begin collecting food scraps at its Baltimore headquarters for composting. The Earth Day announcement comes on the heels of Howard County launching its own food-scrap processing facility, which I covered here for The Baltimore Sun. MDE will give its 900-plus employees the option to compost their uneaten food at the agency's main offices in Montgomery Park. Officials there say they hope in the effort's inaugural year to divert more than 6 tons of waste that might otherwise have gone to an incinerator or landfill.

Howard Hord considers himself a chef of sorts, but the food he works with is a little past its prime. Using moldy melon rinds, orange peels and other castoff fruit and vegetables from some Howard County kitchens, Hord is "cooking" the first batches of plant fertilizer to be produced by the new composting facility at the county's Alpha Ridge landfill in Marriottsville, set to mark its official opening on Monday, Earth Day. Hord, the landfill's operations...

Amending the zoning code to allow Carroll County farmers to compost yard waste makes a lot of sense and would go a long way toward solving some current and future solid waste problems. This proposal should not be enacted without safeguards, however. Moreover, a farm-based composting program should not be seen as a green light for the county to end its own composting efforts.Given that state law now prohibits the dumping of yard waste into landfills and the fact that farmers are always looking for ways to increase revenue, expanding the amount of composting in Carroll would produce a variety of benefits.

Earlier this month, Anne Arundel County stopped the long-standing, senseless practice of filling multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art landfills with harmless yard waste.In turn, the first phase of a new yard waste pick-up and composting program begins today and every resident who rakes a leaf should make sure he or she participates.This program isn't just for environmentalists; it should interest every citizen who cares about his or her tax dollar.Waste disposal represents one of the largest expenditures of county government, and the cost grows every year as state and federal standards for landfill liners, caps and monitoring become more stringent.

The new yard-waste composting plant in Jessup near the Anne Arundel County line has been cited by state environmental officials 10 times in the past three weeks for generating sickening smells.The latest violation notice was issued yesterday -- only hours before the regional plant's operator met at the Jessup site with Anne Arundel County officials and promised that the situation would improve. The plant, which is used by Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties, is operated by Maryland Environmental Service, a quasi-public company.

Garbage composting should be studied as an alternative to burning trash for energy, says Commissioner Julia W. Gouge, resisting an idea being pursued by the other commissioners."

Representatives from a Tennessee composting plant will visit Carroll next month to describe their operation, Westminster Mayor W. Benjamin Brown said.Carroll officials had planned a trip this month to Sevier County to see the Bedminster Bioconversion Corp. plant but the trip was canceled Wednesday, he said.The commissioners agreed in early August that they and the town mayors would visit the plant. Some members of the county's Waste-to-Energy Committee also were to attend. Mr. Brown had proposed the trip after he visited the Tennessee plant in July.

Earlier this month, Anne Arundel County stopped the long-standing, senseless practice of filling multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art landfills with harmless yard waste. In turn, the first phase of a new yard waste pick-up and composting program begins today and every resident who rakes a leaf should make sure he or she participates.This program isn't just for environmentalists; it should interest every citizen who cares about his or her tax dollar. Waste disposal represents one of the largest expenditures of county government, and the cost grows every year as state and federal standards for landfill liners, caps and monitoring become more stringent.

I want to start a compost pile, but I'm worried that kitchen scraps will attract animals from the woods nearby. Any thoughts? Usually kitchen scraps are a small portion of a pile's ingredients. Most kitchen scraps are small pieces, damaged or bruised. They begin decomposing while still in the pail. Kitchen compost pails made with lids that have a filter are very effective is eliminating odor. By the time you dump the pail, scraps are usually beyond being palatable to animals. Throw other organic matter on top. You can also bury the scraps in garden soil.

Should I avoid putting seed heads from flowers or weeds into my compost pile, or will heat from the composting process bake the seeds? I don't want to throw in grass clippings if weed seeds will germinate when the compost is distributed later. Also, do compost bins continue to work in the winter despite short days and cooler temps? "Hot" composting kills many weeds seeds but cannot be relied upon to kill all. If you have really troublesome weeds, don't put those in your compost pile.

Many people see Thanksgiving leftovers as too much of a good thing and toss them out. Vinnie Bevivino wants those uneaten castoffs and more — he sees a chance to make some green with them while going green. Bevivino, 31, is the owner of Chesapeake Compost Works, the Baltimore area's latest addition to Maryland's fledgling food recycling industry. His startup began processing scraps and spoilage from local restaurants, supermarkets and institutions about a month ago in a cavernous old warehouse in Curtis Bay. Early next year, if all goes as planned, he hopes to begin selling that unwanted food waste after it's been transformed into dark, rich humus, which the region's gardeners and urban farmers can use to make new food.

At this time of year, it is an unfortunate fact of nature that a deer in the headlights often becomes a highway casualty. What happens afterward is a story of renewal involving wood chips, horse manure and state workers, like Tyrone Henderson, with cast-iron constitutions. Every day, Henderson hoists himself into a massive yellow dump truck and checks his list before rolling out of the State Highway Administration's Sykesville garage. He is a man on a mission; or, as he likes to say, it's "time to find the stinkees.

Keith Losoya thinks a terrible thing to waste is waste itself. Losoya is the founder and principal partner of Waste Neutral, a small Baltimore firm that helps businesses and institutions compost leftover food that would otherwise go in the trash. The company started consulting in 2008 and began hauling the next year. Another business does the actual composting, but Waste Neutral gives its clients credits so they can get some of the compost back for use wherever they like — in gardens, at urban farms or on other property.

I applaud Howard County for at least trying to compost at a county level ("Thinking outside the can," Aug. 4). And as a backyard composter in Baltimore, I hope my neighbors to the west succeed. But I doubt they will. The public simply isn't ready. We can't even recycle properly. Inappropriate items fill recycle bins from soiled deli food containers to the plastic bags that carried them out of the store. You don't get much simpler than single-stream recycling and still we fail. Composting is more complex.

The Baltimore metropolitan area is a step away from a triumph in regional cooperation. That step will be taken tonight if the Anne Arundel County Council approves a three-county agreement to build a yard-waste composting facility in Dorsey. The Baltimore and Howard county councils have already given their blessings to the deal.We urge the Anne Arundel council to do the same. The panel should ignore the local solid waste advisory committee's recommendation that the plan be killed. Although the committee chairman has suggested his group take a neutral stance on the issue, other members have argued the facility is unneeded and should be substituted with one that composts food and yard waste together.

Carroll farmers may be able to take some of the yard waste burden off county landfills if a proposed zoning amendment is adopted by the county commissioners.In response to a request from the county zoning administrator, the Carroll County Agricultural Commission yesterday favorably recommended the amendment, which would allow farmers to operate commercial composting facilities.Under the proposal, as amended by the Agricultural Commission, farmers could accept yard waste and mix it with their own plant debris, animal manure and livestock waste at their private compost plant.

From Washington to Annapolis, governments are cutting back on services. The economy is down, unemployment remains high and the message of the day is to get by with less. So why is Howard County in the midst of an ambitious expansion of its recycling program to include curbside pickup of food scraps? The environmentally sensitive among us are no doubt delighted with this development. Local officials believe Howard is the first county in the Eastern United States to offer to collect such material from potato peels to coffee grounds and turn them into rich, earthy compost suitable for the garden or the farm field.

Question: Does it hurt compost to leave it for a long time after it is done decomposing? Answer: When compost is "finished," the nutrients are readily available for plants to use. However, this also means rain can wash, or leach, out the nutrients. Try to use your "finished" compost soon or cover it with a tarp until you can. Don't cover compost that is still in the process of decomposing, when the microorganisms doing the composting need moisture.