Vokashi on panel of "emerging technologies"
at Waste-to-Energy Hearings called by Councilmember Letitia James, chair of NYC Sanitation & Solid Waste Management Committee.
October 26, 2011
Good Afternoon:
My name is Vandra Thorburn and I am the founder and president of Vokashi – kitchen waste solution - a unique composting service in NYC. Using the Japanese method of fermenting food waste called bokashi, we provide the necessary buckets and bran to help households and small businesses collect and ferment all of their food scraps, including materials generally not accepted at traditional composting venues like meats and processed food. Our service is to collect the fermented food waste and process at community gardens along with yard waste, leaves and wood chips to produce an organic-rich compost.
We have been piloting this fermenting process for the past two years. Our primary location for composting is Hands & Heart Community Garden in East New York. The site passed a recent inspection by NYSDEC and we have complied with regulations to register the site.
In an area 20’x 5’ x 3’, three people can turn more than a ton of fermented food waste and yard waste in under three hours. The pile is turned once a month and every other month humus harvested to produce compost. We have diverted more than 10 tons of food waste yielding approximately 15 cubic yards of compost, which has been tested at Brooklyn College’s Environmental Science Analytical Center. The results indicate excellent levels of pH, NPK and organic content of 25% (organic content of 5% is the average).
Vokashi has a community based composting model that’s poised for expansion. Using some simple math we could provide dozens of truly green jobs, service more than 100 community gardens, divert 1000 tons of food waste from the landfills for less than $1 million. We invite and urge DOS to use some of its ‘waste export’ budget to establish neighborhood organic recycling programs and as it were return tipping fees to the community to “keep NYC’s earth in business.”
The waste technology we are using is EM-1(r) the world's leading microbial inoculant developed by EMRO Japan. EM-1(r) (effective microorganisms) is used around the world. Town Councils up and down England advocate 'bokashi' as a composting method. EM-1(r) has many other applications and products that help restore the natural balance of nature in soils, water, air and people - using only natural ingredients. The research and development of biotechnology that EMRO Japan carries out is the cultivation of effective microorganisms, particularly focused on lactic acid, yeast and phototrophic bacterias. EM products are distributed in over 90 countries. EMRO Japan has licensing agreements with over 50 countries to manufacture EM-1(r) locally including in the United States in Texas and Arizona.
COMPOSTING –Putting our waste dollars to work in the community
One of biggest tickets in the NYC DOS budget is for waste export – i.e. carting municipal waste to landfills. If one third of this waste stream is organics the question is how best to put these carting waste dollars to work in our community.
There are hundreds of community gardens in NYC: more than 600 under the GreenThumb umbrella plus 120 in private land trusts: (Trust for Public Land; Bronx Land Trust; Brooklyn Queens Land Trust and the New York Restoration Project). In addition there are public parks and botanical gardens, hundreds of vacant and blighted sites owned by city agencies, not to mention private properties seeking greening opportunities. According to GreenThumb, approximately 150 of their gardens compost enough to meet their needs; another 300 gardens have composting areas but require assistance, which leaves 300 gardens with no composting at all.
[See End Notes for Examples of community based composting initiatives]
Nevertheless, GreenThumb as the main provider to community gardens uses multiple sources for compost, i.e. – The Bronx Zoo; NYC Department of Sanitation (DOS). They have purchased compost and topsoil from different vendors, (East Coast Mines, LI Compost and others) who must meet stringent specifications and charge about $700 per 25 cubic yard.
GREEN JOBS- a win for gardens, organic waste management and recycling
Vokashi sees a great opportunity to generate healthy neighborhood green jobs as community composters and recycling educators. NYC has thousands of acres of green space, community gardens and urban farms that require mulch, soils, and compost. Community gardens and urban farms are rebuilding urban agriculture producing fresh fruits, herbs and vegetables and establishing neighborhood markets. At the center of this restoration there needs to be vigorous composting initiatives to maintain healthy vibrant soils for growing foods. Being a community composter is another great entrée into community gardens to learn about gardening and growing fresh food and marketing.
Community composters needs to be a bona fide green job with the attendant training and education. Along with learning the sciences involved in composting: study and testing of soils, microorganisms, worms and fungi; composting requires carpentry and building skills and Vokashi introduces all the accoutrements of fermentation.
There are challenges to urban composting. Fermentation, however, delivers us from the first problem ‘rotting food’ and opens the door to the many possibilities for managing fermented organic waste. There are capital requirements too for building out and improving urban composting. Designs for flexible vector proof composting bins, corrals and portable units and covers: mulching machines, pulpers, sifting wheels, packaging and storage are some of the items needed.
As NYC implements plans to ‘green-up’ this is could be DOS’ ‘1% for the planet’.
END NOTES
Some community-based composting examples are:
Park Slope Food Coop produces 28,000 lbs of food waste annually which is split between 5 gardens. 14 tons is composted at the Garden of Union one of the oldest and premiere voluntary composting sites.
Compost for Brooklyn is a newer volunteer initiative that serves about 150 - 200 local households. They collect 2500 - 3000 pounds of food waste per month which they compost on a private lot about 2000 square feet, in a residential neighborhood. This project has become a focal point for the neighborhood and they engage about 15 local youth to help with outreach and education.
GrowNYC contracted with Action Carting to take residential drops at seven of their markets to Peninsular Composting facility in Wilmington, DE. As of end of September, 219,000 lbs has been collected. Another community based volunteer initiative, Earth Matter, has taken some of the GrowNYC stream to their facility on Governors Island.
Susan Greenfield - Coordinator of recycling food waste at El Sol Brilliante and the Children's Garden: Welcome to El Sol Brilliante. In this garden we love microorganisms and have been having a wonderful time experimenting with them.I will take this opportunity to tell the story of how we came to the point where we could have this event tonight.
In early spring of 2009 we had a 15' pile of garden clippings and brush in the back area of the garden. It became home for the pack of rats that were running all over the garden. We decided it was time to do something, so we bought a chipper, 2 plastic rat proof composters, and built 2 wooden rat proof bins.
In the fall of 2008 the city stopped recycling the leaves in the Sauer park playground. Barbara Augsburger and I could not bear the idea that the leaves would end up in the landfill so we dragged the bags of leaves into the children's garden down the block.
At the same time my friend Amy who owns a restaurant across the street wanted to compost her food waste. She hired the company Action Carting that takes food waste 2 hours away from the city to compost. She informed me that we could take the food waste whenever we wanted.
I called the Lower East Side Ecology Center for support and Carey said "Susan you have everything you need to make compost". The leaves = carbon: food waste = nitrogen. Barbara and I were the compost team. We put 50%leaves and 50%food waste into the plastic composters for 1-2 weeks and then layered it with leaves into the wooden bins. It was very labor intensive and the odor cleared members out of the garden and the mothers at the playground were checking their baby's diapers.
In the fall Debra Italiano the "network diva" sent me information about EM. I read up on it and it looked fascinating but the idea of trenching was risky for many reasons.
1. The rat problem in our garden was out of control and also in the park and around the city.
2. EM had been used in rural Japan but never in an urban environment.
3. There were people in our garden who were not happy about the composting.
I decided to invite Shig to carefully and discretely experiment with us with the understanding that the experiment would stop if the rats were eating the food waste.
We trenched in the children's garden because the planting season was over there. The rats did not eat the fermented food waste. We put fermented food waste in the wooden bins at El Sol .The rats were not eating but they were burrowing in for warmth. So we put the food waste into the plastic composters for the winter.
When we opened up the plastic composters in the spring there were millions of worms. It was so exciting and the 2 composters became our worm bins. We made the most beautiful black fertile soil in the worm bins. We were collecting 2-3 20 gallon bins of food waste @ week to feed the worms and trench in the 2 gardens.
When the temperature rose to the 90's the worms cooked in the plastic bins. That was a sad day but pushed us to research and build beautiful summer homes for the worms. We layered 2 wheel barrels with fermented leaves and fermented food waste, a bamboo thatched roof to protect them from the sun and rain. We built a duplex worm bin in the children's garden. The first floor is on the cool ground and the 2nd floor on a shallow plastic tray and wooden cover. The worms are coming back and are liking their summer home.
We have never had educational workshops at El Sol Brilliante. Shig has been giving free workshops every Saturday afternoon since the spring. He has also been teaching kids from the local elementary and high schools at El Sol and trenching at the children’s garden. We are so fortunate and grateful for his service. He is now part of the 12th Street family.
Some of the soil in the children's garden came from underneath a cement floor from a funeral parlor. We trenched 9 times in one spot and there are still no worms. We will be doing a chemical soil test. In the meantime we are remediating the soil with EM-1®. Spraying activated EM-1® 2x a week and trenching every square foot.
Last year we composted 9 20 gallon bins of food waste and leaves the traditional way. This year so far we have recycled 29 batches of food waste with EM-1®.
The microorganisms are doing the work making great fertile soil and remediating toxins. We no longer have a rat problem. Fermented food waste seems to be a rat deterrent.
We have a good system now, a model to share with other gardens who want to recycle food waste with Effective Microorganisms .
