The Import/Export Business

I occasionally hear from apartment dwellers frustrated that they can’t compost. I point them to this indoor composting contraption or suggest worm bins. But here’s a new idea: Export your compost!

I just found out that New Yorkers can drop off their food waste at Union Square Farmer’s Market, where the Lower East Side Ecology Center will compost it with their in-vessel system. They have a few groundrules–hair and nails (human or animal) are OK, but not so coal or dog poop. Fair enough.

There are a number of public compost spots, like the one in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park. But the farmer’s market drop spot is ideal. If every farmer’s market had a compost collection, it’d complete a virtuous circle: Every week, you buy fresh produce, eat most of it (hopefully) and bring back the scraps, which the farmer uses to make compost to help grow more food.

Bringing your compost bucket to the market would become part of the routine (with a separate container for the fresh food, natch). Does anyone know if this occurs at other farmer’s markets?