{"id":50460,"date":"2021-02-23T15:10:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T15:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=499538"},"modified":"2021-02-23T15:10:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T15:10:10","slug":"his-vision-for-community-buy-in-on-composting-make-it-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/23\/his-vision-for-community-buy-in-on-composting-make-it-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"His vision for community buy-in on composting: Make it \u2018cool\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Domingo Morales<\/strong> will be the first to tell you that composting changed his life.<\/p>\n It all started in 2015 when the Brooklyn resident spotted a flier for Green City Force<\/a> \u2014 an AmeriCorps sustainability training program aimed at youth within the New York City Housing Authority. Morales fit the description of an ideal applicant to a T and, feeling aimless after quitting his restaurant job months before, thought it might be a sign.<\/p>\n Today, Morales manages composting sites and teaches people how to incorporate composting<\/a> into their lives. For some, that means bringing a crank composting system<\/a> into their apartment. For others, it\u2019s setting up a vermicomposting system<\/a> (which is all about the worms, for you non-experts!) in a classroom. In a city where one-third<\/a> of garbage is compostable, there\u2019s a woeful shortage of composting services \u2014 especially for the one in 15 people<\/a> who live in public housing. Morales sees grassroots composting, especially among Housing Authority residents, as a way of bridging that gap while fostering empowerment and inclusivity within the green economy. To that end, Morales mentors the next generation with the goal of increasing diversity within the composting community.<\/p>\n Morales found his own mentor several years ago in David Buckel, a prominent LGBT lawyer and environmental activist. Seven months after joining Green City Force, Morales landed a job at the Red Hook Farms compost site<\/a> in Brooklyn, where he and Buckel worked together for three years. When Buckel self-immolated to protest<\/a> fossil fuels in 2018, Morales dedicated himself to carrying on his legacy by managing the compost site with help from a volunteer.<\/p>\n After losing that job when the Red Hook Farms compost site lost funding early in the pandemic, Morales applied for the David Prize<\/a> \u2014 a new award for NYC residents with big ideas \u2014 to develop his Compost Power<\/a> education initiative. He received the $200,000 grant in October<\/a> and started building and renovating 10 compost sites, often alongside Green City Force, with the capacity to handle 50 tons by the end of 2021. (He\u2019s already halfway toward that goal.) Morales hopes to see communities take over running these sites, but if they lack the resources, he\u2019ll train folks to do the job and help find the money to keep them going.<\/p>\n As if that\u2019s not enough to keep him busy, Morales also wants to launch an educational show on composting within the next year or two. In the meantime, you\u2019ll find him at compost sites throughout NYC and on the Compost Power Instagram<\/a>, where he shares updates and composting explainers.<\/p>\n Fix chatted with Morales about grassroots composting, and what tips he has for compost experts looking to start local initiatives. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n To me, composting is the easiest way to be sustainable. If you drop off food scraps at a compost site, you can actually see them turn into the finished product used to grow more food. Every other form of recycling, you have to follow it from transfer station to transfer station to transfer station. I want to see the whole process, and I want to create that resource myself. That’s why I chose composting.<\/p>\n I plan to train and hire young adults with Green City Force, place them in green jobs, and create something like a workers\u2019 cooperative where they can be owners in the future. By providing infrastructure and education to underserved communities, we can give them the power to take over those systems and create their own economic sustainability by generating programs that can harbor jobs and careers.<\/p>\n That’s basically what Compost Power is about. I chose \u201cCompost Power\u201d as the name because I’m using compost to bring power back to the community.<\/p>\n If a community wants a specific system, I\u2019m absolutely gonna make it happen for them. It isn’t about what I want or what I think the best system for that space would be. It’s working with people to figure out what they want. As long as we’re composting, I feel like it works.<\/p>\n As I’m building these sites, I’m creating videos so the public can see how it\u2019s done: What issues come with building a site? How do you compost? How do you separate organics in your household? I\u2019m always considering these things as I build sites, asking, \u201cWhat can any New Yorker benefit from?\u201d<\/p>\nOn composting as a communal act<\/strong><\/h3>\n
On compost systems that best meet community needs<\/strong><\/h3>\n