It’s been a few weeks since our last blog, and wow—we’ve got a lot to catch up on. Since our January 2 update, the Greenwich Composting Project has continued to heat up (literally!), with some big wins and big piles (and very happy worms - zoom in on the photo below!).
♻️ Recent Collection Totals
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Last week: 195 lbs of kitchen scraps diverted from landfill
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This week: 235.6 lbs — one of our strongest weeks yet!
It’s clear more neighbors are home from travels and ready to compost. The bins are busy and the drop-off buckets are full!
🔥 Compost Status: Hot, Hot, Hot
This week, we restructured our bins to make room for a new active pile. Here's what happened:
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We sorted through the curing bin, pulling out anything still composting to move back into the active piles.
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The fully cured compost is now in our finished bin, ready for heat treatment.
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We now have:
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3 very active piles
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1 dormant pile
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1 bin packed with finished compost waiting for heat treatment
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Our temperature readings from this morning:
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🌡️ Bin 1 (dormant): 50°F
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🌡️ Bin 2 (active): 110°F
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🌡️ Bin 3 (active): 135°F
(Bin 4 not yet measured as we have only just started it, but it will be steaming soon!)
Meanwhile, the ground temperature is 32°F, so the fact that our piles are still cooking is pretty amazing. We tried to photograph the steam rising from our piles and the photograph is below - look closely as steam is hard to capture in a photo!
🚛 From Trash to Splash
A neighbor recently got curious: How many garbage trucks could we fill with our diverted kitchen scraps? After a little research, we learned that garbage trucks are surprisingly big…
But here's something fun to visualize:
🧮 18,000 lbs of kitchen scraps = enough to fill a small backyard swimming pool! 💦
That’s a whole pool of waste that didn’t go to a landfill. Instead, it’s on its way to becoming nutrient-rich compost that will feed gardens and regenerate soil. 🌱
🧪 What's Next?
As spring approaches, we’re getting ready to:
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Heat treat the finished compost - need to think of a more time efficient way of doing this! Ideas welcome!
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Prep for gardening season
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Keep expanding our drop-off network
We’re so proud of this community and can’t wait to see what the next few months bring.
💚 Thank You!
Every eggshell, coffee filter, and banana peel you drop off keeps our bins thriving. It’s your actions that help turn scraps into solutions.
Stay warm, keep composting, and check back soon for another steaming update 🔥🪱
—The GCP Team
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