Charlotte, VT
Working to improve the way we produce and use energy in Charlotte since 2010.
Why do we compost?
Organic materials like food scraps, yard waste, leaves, and chipped clean wood are RESOURCES that can be turned into rich compost. Adding these materials to landfills puts them into an anaerobic condition and creates methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
Keep compostable materials out of landfills!
Environmental Benefits
Soil Benefits
Compost Infographic Posters
Click on the buttons below to view various infographics on composting. Source: Institute for Local Self Reliance.
VT landfills receive ~77,000 tons of food scraps each year, roughly 24% of Vermont’s total annual trash. Act 148, Vermont’s Universal Recycling law, bans all food scraps from the trash.
On the other hand, turning these organic resources into compost benefits the soil (Soil Health Key Points), our watersheds and can be used in an array of “green infrastructure” projects; all of which strengthen our food and energy systems, while contributing to carbon sequestration and storage.
• Improves soil structure (balance of sand, silt, clay, organic matter)
• Helps to form soil aggregates
• Reduces compaction and erosion
• Improves aeration, water retention and flow
• Slowly releases macronutrients
• Increases nutrient availability/holding capacity
• Moderates pH levels
• Binds metals and other pollutants
• Promotes a healthy microbial population
• Increases population of earthworms and other beneficial creatures
• Suppresses soil borne pests and diseases
• Watershed health
• Water conservation
• Reduction of landfill leachate and methane emissions
• Reduces need for synthetic pesticide and fertilizer
• Sequesters atmospheric carbon
If you live in Chittenden County and can't compost at home like this picture, you can take your compost here, or get it picked up.
Composting Resources
Green Infrastructure- Compost blankets, compost socks, green roofs, rain gardens, bio-swales, stormwater management. Compost media slows water, binds contaminants, and quickly revegetates eroded areas.
Soil Builders- Education in Action webinars, Compost Association of Vermont
Composting at work in Charlotte
The CCS compost shed is tied to the school kitchen and vegetable gardens.
The composting center at the Charlotte Library.
An example of vermicompost, where earthworms are used in the process of converting organic waste into fertilizer.