.jpg)
In partnership with all three local jurisdictions, Boxerwood Nature Center is once again facilitating a conservation challenge in which 80 local households receive free backyard composters in exchange for participating in a 10-week food diversion study.
Now in its third year, the Backyard Compost Challenge has already helped 150 local households adopt composting practices, annual diverting more than 16,000 pounds of food waste from the Rockbridge Regional Landfill.
As in previous years, newly recruited households will weigh and divert food scraps to their grantfunded composters each week and report their results to Boxerwood, which will post aggregate results on its website. Last spring 100% of participating households successfully completed the project and committed to continue the practice going forward. The success of the project prompted renewed funding from the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality with a $14,000 competitively secured award.
The motivation behind the program is to give households the tools to adopt more earth-friendly practices. Hauling food waste to landfills increases costs for municipalities. Decomposing organic material in landfills also releases methane, a harmful greenhouse gas. Household composting, however, builds rich soil and sequesters carbon: healthy ecological outcomes.
For these reasons, municipalities across the nation encourage citizen composting, but not everyone has the tools or know-how for getting started. The Great Backyard Compost Challenge tackles those obstacles by providing composting kits plus supportive coaching from Boxerwood and from volunteers from Rockbridge Area Master Gardeners. The kit includes the original “Earth Machine” (an 80-gallon sturdy black plastic composter), a household collecting pail, and hand scale. Participants do not need prior knowledge of composting and the Earth Machines were selected for their durability and simplicity of use.
The project runs March 20 to May 20. Participation in the study is open to all residents of Buena Vista, Lexington and Rockbridge County, but only households not currently composting will be eligible for the free compost kits. According to organizers, priority goes to households with children with others selected by lottery.
There is no cost to participate and, indeed, at the end of the study, households who wish to continue to divert their food waste may keep their composting kits, a $150 retail value.
Interested households may register online at https://boxerwood. org/compost-join/. The deadline for signing up is March 5.
