3.10 Let's Compost with Cordelia O'Rouke and Glenn Arnade, Grades of Green

"From the environmental aspect, composing has so many benefits. When you compost your food instead of throw way in the landfill, it gets proper aeration and it has oxygen to properly decompose so it doesn't release harmful greenhouse gasses like methane into the environment. So it's helping kind of the global warming movement on one aspect. And then from another lens, I'm taking AP environmental science right now and my teacher was talking about how one of the main reasons that they're requiring compost in California is because they're running out of landfill space.  And so landfill space is obviously really detrimental to a lot of ecosystems because you're displacing those natural lands to put in manmade things like the landfills.  And so when we compost our food, we're not taking up those lands and taking those lands away from natural ecosystems.  And lastly, composting is known as black gold. And so, compost is really valuable to a lot of plants, and so, when we compost instead of just throwing it away, we create that natural fertilizer, so composting also reduces the use of synthetic fertilizers, which cause so many problems in the ecosystem."

Grades of Green is an international non-profit organization, originally founded in Southern California by moms to “educate, empower and inspire students to take action and achieve long lasting environmental impact in their schools and communities.”  Special Project Manager, Glenn Arnade, proudly introduced me to a high-school student named Cordelia O’Rouke, who spearheaded a program to get local schools to start composting the food scraps from their cafeterias. 

In California, the State Senate Bill 1383 enacted in January 2022 requires the food and compostable materials be kept out of the landfill.  Empowered by the bill and the support/structure provided by Grades of Green, Cordelia has so far reached approximately 4,000 students at 4 different schools and trained them to engage in composting programs to divert the cafeteria food scraps.  

Cordelia discussed the benefits of composting and how it can help the environment by reducing greenhouse gasses and landfill space, and also shared tips on how to compost, including adding more brown waste and finding the right composting method based on individual goals and living situations.