kyle and i had been talking about community composting on the island for quite awhile but it was always a lot of talk and because we are both super busy people, not a lot of action. finally this winter we decided that we needed to act on such a simple conviction and do something. talk the talk and walk the walk. i had already talked about this idea with my good friend leila who also lives and loves the island and she supported our idea from the beginning. once kyle and i decided we wanted move forward with our idea i went to leila and her and her husband generously decided to let us use a piece of their land for our base of operations and grasshopper hill compost was born. leila also pointed us in the direction of agricultural grants offered through The Island Institute and we decided to go for it. we were awarded a small grant in april to get our project started and we have been moving forward ever since.
we built the 3 bin composting system almost entirely from found and donated objects right here on the island. we have used pallets left over from construction sights, trap wire washed up on the beach and donated by lobstermen friends, rocks, rope and wood washed up on the beaches.
with the grant money we purchased some new shovels and pitchforks, printed laminates indicating what is and is not compost-able and brochures and signs to distribute around the island community in hopes to educate and inspire our community about the benefits of composting. we also used some of the grant money to purchase buckets to give to those that want to join in and start saving their food wastes for composting. we have also had buckets donated by local restaurants in portland.
everything is ready to go. we are going to try to track how much waste we save from going into our transfer station (dump) and is being used to compost and turned into a product that will help our soil, our plants and our gardens.
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