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 implemented over three years, August 2024 to July 2027.  Ciudad Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) is currently piloting the composting projects at Polk Middle School, Valle Vista Elementary, and Los Padillas Elementary. Implementing the composting curriculum currently in the works with the end goal making it accessable to all teachers APS-wide. In the @026 - 2027 school year, compost initiatives will be piloted at a 3 other APS high schools.  Ciudad SWCD is truly looking forward to continue 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. As of August 2024, Ciudad SWCD is collaborating with various organizations to develop a community composting co-op site and a farm compost hub site. A write up freely shared case studies based on these and other regional community composting efforts will be available in 2026.

The Martineztown Community Compost  Co-op is currently operating in partnership with Second Presbyterian Church, located at 812 Edith Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87102 (parking on Page Ave). They hold weekly work days every Tuesday from 6:30 - 7:30pm. Everyone one is welcomed to join for a work day or drop off food scraps.  A typical work day involves turning compost piles of unfinished food scraps and sifting finished compost. There is plenty of finished compost to take home.

We're happy to share out these accomplishments we've completed as a Co-op so far (April to July 2025):

• We've diverted 1,147.2 lbs of food scraps from going to the landfill; about the weight of a concert grand piano.
• If 1147.2 lbs were to have gone to the landfill, it would have created 2.36 metric tons of COe2. This is equivalent to 5,845 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, which we've prevented from going into the atmosphere!
• Instead we created 9.3 cubic ft of compost. This covers 324 square feet at a 1 inch application, which is the size of a studio home. 

Thank you to all who have participated in our work days and have dropped off your food scraps! We rely on each and everyone of you to keep this work going. 

This is only our first 4 months as a Co-op, we've averaged composting 300 lbs/ month and have the capacity to include more. So if you haven't dropped food scraps yet, we have the space for you, so come join us. Just a reminder that you don't have to stay for the full hour, come for as long as you'd like and as many times a month you have capacity for.