Zero Waste Coalition: composting at home and in the City of Chelsea 

(This article is written by Chelsea Zero Waste Coalition member Shawn Sinacola-Rodriguez. She is a Chelsea High School teacher, mother of two young children, and an avid composter. )

When my grandfather passed away 14 years ago, my grandmother gave me his green compost bin. This gift was the beginning of my composting journey.

From that moment, my husband and I started composting everything, which drastically reduced our waste and created a nutrient-rich humus to return to our garden. I remember my joy the first winter I saw steam rise from the green bin surrounded by snow. It was a beautiful sight to know that we were cutting our landfill waste in half and creating soil that would return to the garden to feed us. 

Fascinated by the process of making compost, I took a vermicomposting class at the Washtenaw County Solid Waste Facility and read the book Worms Eat my Garbage by the late Mary Appelhof. Composting with worms is just one of many methods that may work for you.

Years later, Arbor Club students approached me about composting the CHS kitchen and cafeteria food waste. In 2017, Jenna Gileczek (CHS class of 2017) did the requisite research to figure out what it would take to compost at Chelsea High School.

In 2018, Eagle Scout Mason P. Fecker (CHS class of 2019) built an outdoor compost structure. At the start of this current school year, Arbor Club students began composting the kitchen’s food scraps and students’ leftovers. Once it’s finished, this compost will then be returned to the trees in the CHS Alumni Arbor. 

The green compost bin bequeathed to me by my grandparents remains at the Chelsea Community Garden, where I was once a member. I heard through the grapevine that my grandfather’s compost bin has become a community resource, currently being used by a lovely woman named Meg Gower.

Nothing could make me happier than to know that we are all in this together–that we residents of Chelsea have an opportunity to take action to make our city a zero waste home by reducing our waste through taking less and composting more. 

Composting our food waste is the critical lynchpin to achieving zero waste. Not only does composting help us reduce our landfill waste (133 billion pounds of the 430 billion pounds of food produced in our country is not eaten), but it also aids in drawing down carbon. The EPA estimates that only 6.3% of the total food waste in our country was composted in 2017. We can do better than this. I urge you to give composting a try. It is a simple way to significantly cut down on the number of orange plastic bags you’ll have to fill during the year.

And luckily, there is a composting method for almost everyone. 

If you are up for building a bin yourself, you can grab pallets for $3 each at the Chelsea Farmers Supply, or ask any of our local businesses if they have them to give away, and build pallet structures that can be seen in the photos above. 

There are also tumbler bins that work well to keep the compost “moving” towards decomposition, as well as fully enclosed bins for anyone who has to worry about rodents being interested in their compost scraps. 

It’s important to figure out how you’ll collect your kitchen scraps inside before you move them outside. Many of my friends re-use their yogurt tubs, while I find a metal counter container with a lid to be most convenient. 

What I love about composting is that I can compost practically EVERYTHING. In addition to all of our food prep waste (peels, stems, coffee, filters, egg shells) and my kids’ left overs, I compost lint from the dryer, hair from our hairbrushes, dust from the vacuum cleaner, newspaper, parchment paper, bones that I’ve boiled for bone broth–even my cat’s litter and waste.

I built a separate compost bin for items such as the latter that I don’t want returned to our edible garden. If you’re interested in composting your cat’s litter, know that both Chelsea Farmers Supply and Wags to Whiskers carry multiple types of compostable cat litter. A friend of mine even composts her baby’s diapers. 

Ready to give composting a try? Check out the Food Revolution Network’s 5 Secrets to Composting at Home. This is an excellent resource to study before you start. 

Do you already compost? If so, please share a picture of your compost, tips, or tricks on the Chelsea Zero Waste Coalition’s Facebook page. 

Interested in becoming a Master Composter? Look out for Washtenaw County’s Master Composter class in the fall.

But wait, what if you don’t have the means – the space or the time – to compost on your own? What if you live in one of our retirement communities, condo or apartment developments, or perhaps you’re in a subdivision whose bylaws forbid composting, or putting up a fence that you’d like to have around your compost bin and garden? Well, that’s where a push for city and/or county-wide composting comes in, because we can only achieve zero waste if all of our residents and visitors have access to composting. Furthermore, achieving zero waste is a county goal. The Washtenaw Solid Waste Management Plan’s goals include (see page 9):

Goal One: Reduce the overall amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated per capita in Washtenaw County by 5% in the year 2022 and by 10% in the year 2027, with a target of working towards zero waste. 

Goal Two: Increase municipal solid waste diversion rates from current levels (33%) to 38% in 2022 and 43% in 2027, with a target of 100% diversion.

City-wide composting of food waste in Chelsea would be one giant step toward achieving these waste management goals in our city and in our county. Having city-wide composting of food waste would only serve to increase the desirability for people to live, work, visit, and play in Chelsea.

Imagine the hype that would be created if we made the move to offer zero waste eating at all of our restaurants. Chelsea would become that much more of a destination for visitors if they knew they could have a waste free meal in our town, similar to the experience that patrons enjoy when they visit Fresh Forage on Jackson Road.

We commend the several restaurants that have switched to compostable materials—ZouZous, Brahma Haus, and Agricole—but until we have industry-level composting in our city, these compostable materials end up in the landfill. The food waste loop isn’t closed until composting is available for all residents’ and restaurants’ waste, from pre-consumer food prep, to leftovers, to packaging. 

Chelsea can look to Emmet County as a model for composting, where 30 restaurants and florists enjoy weekly compost pick up, and residents can drop off their food scraps to their farmers markets and their transfer station to be composted.

Emmet County incorporates the food scraps they collect into their pre-existing yard waste composting infrastructure, and Chelsea could do the same. Check out Emmet County’s Food Scraps Program to learn more about a viable program that Chelsea could emulate. 

Are you interested in having city-wide composting? Send WWRA a message on its Facebook page or an email. Let them know that you would like composting services available in our city and the surrounding areas. 

I am grateful to my grandmother for passing on the green compost bin to me, and I am even more grateful to all of you who are interested and willing to join us in our endeavors to reduce unnecessary waste in our beautiful city through giving composting a try. 

The Chelsea Zero Waste Coalition invites all residents to join us at our next meeting at Serendipity books at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7. 

You can now follow the Chelsea Zero Waste Coalition (ChelseaWaste) on Twitter. Check out our #iamdonewithplastic videos and make one of your own.