Community Composting By Libby Hopkins
Elizabeth A. Leib is a firm believer in giving back to the community. She is a sustainability tour guide at Keel & Curley Winery. She is the Volunteer Manager at Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger and the Founder and Director of Hillsborough Community Compost Alliance. “In 2013 I started an all-volunteer driven 501c-3 non-profit, Tampa Bay Farm 2 School (TBF2), to support youth gardens,” Leib said. “During the seven years of operating TBF2S’s service to Hillsborough County schools and youth clubs, I expanded the organization’s programs, adding plant-based cooking program called Kids’ Kitchen and composting. Presently TBF2S is on hiatus, so I’m giving tours at Keel & Curley Winery and recruiting and managing volunteers for the hunger relief organization Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger. I’ll be using my expertise in composting to assist Keel & Curley Farm to set up an on-site composting operation to convert food waste from the restaurant to compost that can be used in the fields.” “I started Hillsborough Community Composting in 2018 after attending a Pinellas Compost meeting,” Lieb said. “There was no organization in Hillsborough County that exists solely for the purpose of educating and information sharing.” The Hillsborough Community Compost Alliance works to ensure the future by raising awareness about food waste and composting solutions for returning that waste to soil. “We promote a variety of ideas and tools to make composting practical for individuals, schools, organizations and businesses,” Leib said. “Our goal is to increase general public participation in the regimented act of making soil. For example, we recommend a free website that makes it easy to organize a public or private site for a home, business or neighborhood called MakeSoil.org (www.MakeSoil.org).” Composting is created by combining organic wastes, such as wasted food, yard trimmings and manures, in the right ratios into piles, rows, or vessels. You can also add bulking agents, such as wood chips, as necessary to accelerate the breakdown of organic materials, allowing the finished material to fully stabilize and mature through a curing process.
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There are many benefits to using compost. Compost reduces, and in some cases eliminates, the need for chemical fertilizers. It promotes higher yields of agricultural crops. Compost
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INTHEFIELD MAGAZINE
October 2020
can help aid reforestation, wetlands restoration and habitat revitalization efforts by improving contaminated, compacted and marginal soils. It can also be used to remediate soils contaminated by hazardous waste in a cost effective manner. Compost enhances water retention in soils and provides carbon sequestration. Composting is extremely important in growing healthy and nutritious food. “My goodness, composting is common sense,” Leib said. “It’s just a simple matter of making the best use of resources. As farmers know and the general public often does not, healthy soil is critical to producing food. Compost can be used to improve degraded soil. The problem of food waste is huge. When it ends up in a landfill it creates methane and other greenhouse gas emissions. Using food waste to create compost to enrich soil is so much smarter. And compost helps sequester carbon in the soil and help reverse climate change.” Leib and her Pinellas County counterpart, Amanda Streets, hope their organization can raise awareness about composting and help people on both sides of the bay with their composting needs. “We hope to communicate with community gardens and farms in the Tampa Bay area,” Leib said. “We want to publicize by using social media, graphics and other information to educate the Tampa Bay community about food waste associated with fall decorations.” The Hillsborough Community Composting Alliance will be hosting The Pumpkin Compost Campaign as a joint effort between Hillsborough Community Compost and Pinellas Community Compost. It will be held Oct. 24 - Nov. 1 at various community gardens and local farms in both areas. “It will be a collaboration with local farms interested in feeding whole pumpkins to livestock,” Leib said. ”It’s also a collaboration with community gardens and urban farms to compost carved or rotten pumpkins. We are looking for additional farms and gardens that would agree to accept pumpkins at their locations following social distancing guidelines. Each location would establish their own procedures for drop off.” If you would like to learn more about the Hillsborough Community Compost Alliance, you can visit their website at www. hillsboroughcomposting.com. If you would like to participate in the Pumpkin Compost Campaign, you can contact Leib at ttfarm2school@gmail.com or call her at 813-892-5704. WWW.INTHEFIELDMAGAZINE.COM