Durham adopts pilot program to boost composting

By Will Atwater

For the past few years, East Durham resident Joe Maxwell has shared the surplus produce from his rooftop hydroponic garden with family, friends and neighbors. The bounty includes cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and various greens.

Like some who have taken up occupancy in or near downtown in one of Durham’s ever-growing apartment, condo or townhouse communities, Maxwell and his wife, Julie, traded yard space for a smaller footprint offered by their townhouse and to be within walking distance of restaurants and other amenities.

However, the limited space created a problem for Maxwell: what to do with the garden waste and food scraps.

In July, Durham rolled out a program to tackle the issue. Now, Durham residents and City of Durham employees can deposit food scraps into designated bins — one at City Hall and another at the city’s Waste Disposal and Recycling Center on East Club Boulevard. 

Given his lack of space to do composting on his own, Maxwell was pleased to find a source other than the trash to deposit food scraps and garden debris.

“With this program, it’s easy because we just take the food scraps there, and then they deal with composting and the science involved with the composting,” Maxwell said.

Food waste and a warming climate

Diverting food waste from landfills is a goal shared by municipalities and gardeners, as well as global environmental and scientific communities. All parties are concerned about the connections linking food waste, a warming planet and environmental and health problems.

Food waste buried in landfills breaks down in an oxygen-deprived environment, producing methane as a byproduct. In 2023, NC Policy Watch reported that the Sampson County Landfill where Durham — and dozens of other North Carolina municipalities send their waste — ranks No. 2 in the nation for methane emissions.

In addition to methane, landfill-deposited food waste produces 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., matching the yearly output of 42 coal-fired power plants, according to a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency report.

Researchers have warned that climate change will threaten world economies by disrupting product supply chains, reducing global food production and causing mass population displacement, among other negative impacts. 

The effects on human health are predicted to include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, more diseases transmitted from insects, as well as more heat-related deaths and other negative outcomes, such as more extreme storms and other weather events. 

What’s more, nutrient-poor soils can be improved by adding compost, which promotes an environment where microorganisms such as earthworms can thrive. Earthworms improve soil drainage by burrowing down in the subsoil, which creates pockets for moisture and air to flow. They also feed on organic material such as leaves and grass clippings, and they produce nutrient-rich waste that boosts the nutrient content of plants and vegetables. 

Building on existing efforts

Wayne Fenton, the city’s Solid Waste Management director, has been working to prioritize  reducing the amount of food waste Durham sends to the Sampson County Landfill. In 2022, the city partnered with The Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University and launched a curbside food waste collection pilot program.

The City of Durham launched a food scraps collection program in July. Two drop-off sites are located at City Hall and the city’s Waste Disposal and Recycle Center on East Club Boulevard. The bins, which are managed by a phone app, are for Durham residents and employees. Credit: Will Atwater

“We started in 2022 with 80 households in the Wall Town community doing weekly curbside collections,” Fenton said. He added, “Participating households were provided with an outdoor cart and […] an indoor countertop container well labeled to identify what is and is not acceptable.”

A 2019 City of Durham Municipal Food Waste Study found that residents generate 27,000 tons of food waste annually.

The curbside program has expanded beyond the Wall Town community, and now food waste is collected from 440 households, Fenton said. Thus far, the effort has diverted roughly 56 tons of food waste from the landfill.

The city is also looking to provide more food waste drop-off locations. Fenton said that, over time, he anticipates the collection program will continue to reduce the amount of food waste entering the landfill, thus lowering Durham’s costs.

Closing the loop

Compost Now is a Raleigh-based organization that works to divert food scraps from the waste stream and use the material to create soil-enriching compost that can be used to produce more food, according to its website.

In 2023, Compost Now members across the organization’s customer base — which includes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs and Wake Forest — diverted nearly 18 million pounds of food scraps from landfills, according to Kat Nigro, the company’s chief operating officer, in an email.

The organization created the drop-off collection program to make it easier for “municipalities, universities, and corporate campuses to implement successful, impactful composting programs,” Nigro said. 

Nigro added that “The City of Durham is the first municipality to use our access-controlled stations.” However, she said she expects other municipalities and institutions across the region to join the program.

One of the pilot program’s benefits, which Compost Now is banking on to draw in more users, is how the data collected by municipalities will streamline the composting process.

“This information allows cities to improve their current program for their citizens, like moving a station to a location with more foot traffic or developing a curbside program using data gathered from the drop-off stations,” Nigro said.

Maxwell is hopeful that data collected by the City of Durham will lead to more drop-off locations, maybe even one in his 36-unit development. 

“If they put one of those [bins] where we have our trash and recycling, I guarantee 90 percent of the people that live here would use it just because of the convenience,” he said.