[SustainableTompkins] Was: Prius/electric Cars-->Urban nutrient cycle

[Thomas Shelley]

At 10:37 AM 7/19/2008 -0400, you wrote:
>One thing in our favor, and it isn't trivial, is that it is downhill from
>those outlying growing areas into the city. Of course, the nutrients
>transported in the form of food should make their way back to the land to
>close the loop, something we are far from dealing with.

Dear Joel, Sarah and Friends--Although I have been composting for years, I 
only recently completed the Spring training session of the CCETC Master 
Composter program.  One of my goals as a compost educator is to go to 
various neighborhoods in Ithaca (I live in the flats) and develop 
neighborhood scale composting programs.   The compost generated could be 
used by local gardeners, but some of it could also be cycled back to local 
farmers, so this would close the urban loop you mentioned above of food to 
market(s) in town and nutrients from food scraps --> compost back to the 
farm.  I like this idea better than the San Francisco model of waste 
haulers taking domestic food scraps and processing them at a large 
commercial compost facility.  The commercial compost facility needs to sell 
the compost at a fair market price to make money.  Most of the commercial 
compost produced locally doesn't go to local farms, who probably couldn't 
afford to purchase it, or wouldn't want to purchase it.  Keeping the 
nutrient cycle very local would be a very good thing, especially as we 
plunge deeper into the pending energy descent.  So if you live in the City 
and you would be interested in hosting a set of compost bins for your block 
or neighborhood, please let me know and I can work with you to get it 
going.  Have a wonderful day.   Tom

P.S.:  I suppose you could have an electric motor assist retrofitted to an 
appropriately geared down 4-wheel bike/truck* so that it would be easier to 
get the load of compost back up the hills to the farm.  The farmers could 
also help the urbanites by supplying some of the browns needed for the 
downtown neighborhood compost systems as well as food items.  The batteries 
for the electric assist would be recharged by wind or solar power generated 
back at the farm so that no coal-fired electricity would be 
needed.  Perhaps there could be a cooperative ownership program developed, 
similar to Ithaca Car Share, that would own the 4-wheel bike/trucks and 
look after maintenance, solar charging systems, etc.  This cooperative 
would be collectively owned and operated by the people getting food from 
the farmers (some sort of CSA or market share program (?) as well as direct 
sales at markets), the farmers themselves, and the people providing 
maintenance services.   The use of the 4-wheel bike/trucks would be shared 
amongst the participants, similar to the extended family sharing gasoline 
powered pickups that George described in his post.  An additional benefit 
of the electric motor assist is that no one would ever have to use any of 
the free coupons I mentioned in my previous post.   ;>)

*A few examples of the many models available, in no particular order of 
relevance:
http://www.lightfootcycles.com/trmodel.htm
http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm
http://organicengines.com/lazy-index.php?file=SUV_and_Pedicab/SUV_mods/
http://www.workcycles.com/workbike/bicycles/professional-worktrikes/workbike-classic-open-dutch-transport-bike.html

******************************************
Tom Shelley
118 E. Court St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607 342-0864
tjs1 at cornell.edu

Compost Educator and General Sustainability Geek