Composting
Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District is enthusiastic to report that our District has been awarded the EPA Recycling Education and Outreach grant to implement the Educating the Next Generation: Place-Based Food Waste Reduction and Compost Recycling Initiative project. This project will be implmented over three years. Ciudad Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) will have the pleasure of piloting the project at Polk Middle School the first year, and then will be implmenting the composting curriculum and compost garden at a highschool and elementary school in APS Zone 2 during year two and three. Ciudad SWCD is truly looking forward to building our partnership with APS, the City of Albuquerque Sustainability Office, and other organizations in the South Valley as Ciudad SWCD continues to support the community with local agriculture and soil health initiatives.
Additionally, Ciudad SWCD was awarded the USDA Composting and Food Waste Reduction Grant to Cultivate Collaborative Composting in New Mexico. Ciudad SWCD will collaborate with various organizations to develop a community composting co-op site and a farm compost hub site and write up freely shared case studies based on these and other regional community composting efforts.
Work will begin in June of 2024 for both the Educating the Next Generation: Place-Based Food Waste Reduction and Compost Recycling Initiative project and Cultivating Collaborative Composting in New Mexico project.
Composting converts waste organic material into a rich soil builder (compost) that can contribute humus (well-decomposed organic material) to support a healthy soil microbial community which, in turn, nourishes plants growing in the soil. Composting is easy, can be done a several different ways and reduces the quantity of methane (a strong greenhouse gas) releases into the atmosphere from municipal landfills.
To learn more about how you can get started with a home composting operation, please check out these resources:
NM Environment Department Backyard Composting Made Easy
NM Environment Department compost facility list