If you’ve been to the Prescott Farmers Market on any Saturday in the past three years you probably noticed people carrying green camo buckets with “Prescott Community Compost” stenciled on them. If you were to ask one of these “bucketeers” for a peek, you’d see an assortment of familiar items: carrot tops, onion skins, moldy bread, eggshells, coffee grounds, citrus rinds and banana peels. These buckets full of kitchen scraps have become a visual representation of hundreds of community members turning would-be waste into a valuable resource with the Prescott Community Compost program. Food isn’t waste till it’s wasted!
Food scraps make up a significant portion of landfill waste. The City of Prescott does not have a green-waste composting facility, so most of the food waste generated in the city ends up in a landfill. Organic material in landfills takes up precious space and produces the greenhouse gas methane due to the anaerobic (no oxygen) conditions in landfills.
At our current rate of disposal, Prescott’s landfill will reach capacity within the next 45 years. Keeping food scraps out of the landfill benefits us by extending the life of the landfill, while also using those food scraps to grow more food. This is exactly what the Prescott Community Compost program does.
Each week at the Prescott Farmers Market, 300+ customers either exchange their green buckets for clean ones or dump their own containers of food scraps into a larger collection bin. On average more than 2,500 pounds of food scraps are then driven to the compost site at the southwest corner of the rodeo grounds.
The following day staff and volunteers work together with shovels and pitchforks to chop, water and mix those scraps with carbon-rich materials like leaves, wood chips and sawdust. The mix begins decomposing in large wooden bays, where it receives timed injections of oxygen through a solar-powered aeration system. After two months, staff and volunteers move the pile onto a concrete pad, one shovelful at a time, and continue to turn it for about eight months. During decomposition, microorganisms work so hard that the pile’s temperature heats up to 160 degrees. Once the pile cools and matures, the result is nutrient-dense compost that improves soil structure, fertility, and water retention. Local gardeners will tell you that this compost is just what most soil in our county needs.
Anyone can participate in the Prescott Community Compost program. The best part of this program is the people who work together to keep the compost piles turnin’ and burnin’. Three staff manage the compost site and lead the Sunday work sessions. Last year 74 volunteers donated more than 2,000 hours of their time to turn 54 tons of food scraps into compost. Here are ways to get involved:
• Bring clean, bagged leaves — no rocks, twigs, pet waste, yard waste or pine needles.
• Purchase an annual green-bucket subscription, which includes a clean bucket with sawdust each week — become a bucketeer!
• Contribute your food scraps at the Prescott Farmers Market — dropoffs from your own container are donation-based at the purple compost tent.
• Purchase bags of the finished compost for your garden or house plants.
• Volunteer at the compost site any Friday or Sunday, 9am-1pm.
• Make a charitable donation to support this nonprofit program.
• Spread the word!
Since the compost site doesn’t have the capacity to accept food scraps from every household in the area, the program also teaches individuals how to compost at home with neighbors. If you’re interested in starting a composting system but don’t know where to start, Prescott Community Compost offers a community bin-building workshop service. You purchase the materials and open your backyard to other interested community members to build a system together. PCC also offers a full-service compost system build, which includes all materials and labor to construct a three-bin system at your house. For additional information about these services, email compost@prescottfarmersmarket.org.
Our community is rich in resources if we’re willing to see them in a new light. The Prescott Farmers Market is proud to lead this community-focused program, and honored by your support since 2021. Whether you bring your food scraps to the market, purchase bags of compost for your houseplants or mention it in conversation to a friend, you can participate in and make a difference with Prescott Community Compost. For more information about the program, visit prescottfarmersmarket.org/community-compost.
by Kaolin Randall and Kathleen Yetman
Chef Molly Beverly is away; Kathleen Yetman is Executive Diector of Prescott Farmers Market.
Chef Molly Beverly is Prescott's leading creative food activist and teacher. Photos by Gary Beverly.
