Here’s how KC urban farmers compost your food scraps | Kansas City Star

Farmers Dan Heryer and Brooke Salvaggio wear matching gray rubber boots.

They both have the hardy, outdoorsy look of people who eat a lot of organic vegetables—unsurprising, as they make a living growing them. Heryer’s loud laugh punctuates his sentences, and Salvaggio’s hands gesture emphatically as she talks about her passion for sustainability.

The couple, along with their two young children and a handful of dedicated employees, live and work on URBAVORE Urban Farm growing crops, raising livestock and tending the land.

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And after recently forming a partnership with Compost Collective KC— one of the city’s three curbside composting services— this organic oasis is also where food scraps and lawn trimmings from thousands of Kansas City homes get processed into nutrient-rich soil.

“We felt it was important to take the food waste stream and connect it to growing food and bringing it back to the land,” Heryer told The Star during a recent visit to the farm. “We have plenty of room for Compost Collective to grow for the next several years.”

Compost Collective expanded its curbside collection services into Raytown and Lee’s Summit on March 1.

Heryer and Salvaggio pulled back the curtain on what happens to your food scraps after you discard them in one of Compost Collective’s distinctive green and white curbside buckets.

Life on Kansas City’s urban farm

Perched on a windswept hilltop in southeastern Kansas City, URBAVORE Urban Farm is home to hundreds of egg-laying chickens and rows of produce from asparagus and squash to strawberries and leafy greens.

The farm’s composting area resembles a small construction yard, where towering piles of waste in varying stages of decomposition sit in wide lots outlined by large stone walls.

There’s almost no odor: At first glance, all the piles look like regular soil. But when Heryer climbs into a small bulldozer and begins scooping at the newest pile, food scraps tumble out along with a pungent smell.

This process, called “turning the compost,” is essential to the decomposition process.

“I kind of like having to face our waste every day,” Salvaggio said. The knees of her jeans were stained with mud from planting potatoes. “I feel like that’s part of being human.”

How food scraps become compost

The farmers begin the composting process by collecting organic waste from a variety of sources.

A dumpster in the farm’s front driveway offers neighbors a free drop-off point for food scraps, lawn trimmings and other compostable waste.

And the farm collects and composts more than just carrot tops: its robust operation can handle expired dairy products, unwanted meat and bones, stale bread and even dead leaves from customers’ yards.

Since the farm began its partnership with Compost Collective last year, it now also receives organic waste from around 2,000 Kansas City homes every week. The scraps arrive in compostable plastic bags piled in the back of pickup trucks.

This nitrogen-rich organic waste is first mixed with carbon-rich material like mulch and woodchips. Then the composter adds a final key ingredient: Oxygen. The farm employees “turn” the piles regularly to aerate the scraps, letting oxygen in and allowing the waste to break down much faster than it would if trapped in a landfill.

As Heryer scoops at the pile of raw organic waste, steam billows off the newly exposed orange peels and coffee grounds. The interior of a compost pile on the farm typically reaches around 140 degrees, speeding along the decomposition process without killing the microorganisms that break down the waste. This heat is self-generated as the decomposing food and plants release energy.

Salvaggio said that while a single head of lettuce can take 25 years to decompose in a tightly packed landfill environment, the same leafy greens return to soil in a matter of weeks when properly composted.

The farm also processes materials that can’t be broken down in a lower-temperature backyard compost pile, like paper towels, cardboard and even cotton fabric.

Why it matters: When organic matter decays with no aeration, it produces methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Composting prevents this methane production. A 2021 UN report estimated that between eight and ten percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food waste, making it a main driver of the climate crisis.

A more sustainable Kansas City

Heryer and Salvaggio’s vision for the future of their farm doesn’t just involve endless crop planting and harvest seasons. The couple has big plans, from a fleet of electric trucks collecting full compost buckets on every street in the city to a vast array of solar panels powering the whole farm, including its vehicles and machinery.

“People are already throwing food away, you’re simply putting it in a different vessel than before and leaving that vessel on the curb. And that simple act has such a massive benefit,” Salvaggio said. “It’s so important that people around the metro know that they can do this.”

The composting process is so accessible, Heryer tells us, that one curbside customer with a large family fills six Compost Collective buckets at a time. Customers have the option of weekly pickups, biweekly pickups, or “bin swaps” at locations around the city whenever your bucket gets full.

Here’s a list of other composting programs in Kansas City, and here are some sustainable local businesses and resources that can help you embark on a zero-waste lifestyle.

Do you have more questions about living sustainably in Kansas City? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.

This story was originally published April 01, 2022 5:00 AM.