Board of Equalization and Review October 8, 2026 meeting agenda and

My name is Rachel Pototts. I am the community engagement supervisor here at Orange County Solid Waste. Um, thank you for coming and going to learn about composting and food waste. Um, I'm going to start just by going through a little bit of our department and what we do here and some of our food waste programming. Um, and then I'm going to turn it over to Amy who's in the back um, from Brooks and she's gonna give you all the behind the scenes and ins and outs of uh, commercial composting, which is really, really cool. We're very grateful to have her here today. So, this is just our quick little agenda. First, I'm going to tell you a little bit about our department, just very basics about um, our composting programs here. Um, and then I'll turn it over to Amy and then we'll have time at the end for some questions. So firstly, a little bit about Orange County solid waste. One of the main things that we do and that we are known for is our recycling collection. So we do um countywide curbside recycling collection. We also have our sanitation collection and our sites, our waste recycling centers. Uh we have our landfill, our disposal facility. Um and then our environmental support division, which is the division that I am in here. So, like I said, our recycling collection, we have this curbside countywide. So, both in the urban and the rural areas, everyone gets curbside recycling collection. We also collect um from commercial businesses, from county schools, and from government buildings. Um our sanitation collection in sites. So, we have five staffed waste and recycling centers throughout the county. Um and there's a whole variety of things that are able to be dropped off there. Um, first of all, our single stream mixed recyclables and separated recyclables. So, if you are somebody that doesn't use your curbside cart, maybe you have a really long driveway, you don't want to take it all the way down um from week to week, then you can bring your mixed recyclables to the

waste recycling center. Or if you're somebody that likes to recycle your glass separately, you can do that there as well. Um, you can also bring your household trash there to drop off. So, we don't do any curbside trash collection, but we do offer trash collection at the sites. Um, and then we offer a lot of programs for typically hard to recycle items. So, things like electronics, um, scrap metal, rigid plastics, and then at some of our sites, we also offer um materials like household hazardous waste collection, plastic film collection, and food waste, which we'll talk more in depth about today. Um, so those are our fully staffed waste and recycling centers. And then we also offer 24-hour drop off sites. There are four of those. Um, and these are unstaffed. They're just bins like at the bottom that are available 24/7. Um, and here we have bins for your mixed recyclables, your single stream, for separated corugated cardboard, um, for separated glass. And then now in the last few months or so we have put a bin for um food waste collection and that those bins are a little bit different than the bins that are at um the sites which I will talk about a little bit more in depth. Um so at our disposal facility that is right across the street that is our landfill. It's not a traditional landfill like you might think of um mounts of trash. We do not have an operational trash landfill in Orange County at all. All of our trash that gets collected here goes to a transfer station and then from there it goes to a landfill in Randolph County um that is operated by the same company that takes our recyclables. So um instead of a typical landfill, it is a construction and demolition waste landfill. Um so in industry terms, we call it CN D. So, if you're renovating or tearing down a house, building a house, you have extra materials. This is a place that you will take them. Um, you can also dispose of

mattresses, um, certain metals and yard waste. All of this stuff has a certain fee attached to it, depending on what it is, what kind of vehicle you're driving. Um, stop by the scale house and they will tell you exactly how much you owe. Um, and then also over at the landfill is where we do all of our sale of our compost and our mulch. Um, we also organize our delivery of compost and mulch over there. Um, and then if you're buying one of our earth machines, one of our big backyard compost bins, that's also where you will buy it. And there's just a few photos of some of the things that can be seen over at the landfill. So, in the top left, that is one of our compactors. So that shuffles the waste around um flattens it, tries to make it as small as possible so we can fit as much of that CND waste in there so it doesn't fill up quite so fast. Um one of the new things that we have there that's really exciting is we have a concrete crusher. So um the concrete crusher breaks it down into, you know, little pebble sized pieces. So instead of big slabs of concrete going in that landfill, they're now tiny little pieces. So that saves us a lot of space. Um on the top right that is a yard waste being turned into mulch. So all the yard waste that gets collected um at the landfill and at our waste recycling centers gets chipped and turned into mulch and then it sits for a period of time until it reaches the correct temperature three times um and then it's ready to sell. And then in the bottom here that is our lovely compost that we get from Brooks um that we sell at landfill. Um, so we sell our compost bins. Um, you can buy the kitchen countertop buckets here at our office. Um, you have to call to make an appointment, but um, as of right now, those kitchen top buckets are $7 and the Earth machines are $65. Have a little asterisk there cuz prices are subject to change. It all depends on how much those companies that we buy them from are going to charge us. Um, but as of now, $7.65.

Um, pay with cash, check, or money order. If you are paying with cash, exact change is required. Um, like I said, the sales take place at the scale house over at the landfill. Um, this is just a notice for now that our bulk compost that we typically sell over at the landfill is sold out. Um, we do not have any available right now. I'm not sure how much bag compost is left. I'll have to check with our landfill manager. Um, but as of now, we don't have any bulk compost to sell. Amy can probably give you an update on that if there is one a little bit later. Um, but we will be updating everybody when we do have that available again. Um, so then lastly, our environmental support division. That's the division that I'm in here. This is where everybody that works in this office is in. So, um, education and outreach is one of the main things that we do here. So, we do a whole host of education programs. I'm not going to get too in depth on those, but this is one of the things that we do is some presentations about some of our programming, um all of our finance things, our budget management, um all of our environmental code enforcement. So, all the folks that go out and um talk with people about dumping and burning and all that kind of stuff, they are also in environmental support. um our management of our fleet and then all of the customer service all the phone calls that come to our office come into environmental support. Um so some of the the programs that we have are involved in our waste reduction. So um we are a waste management organization but uh a big part of that is reducing our waste reducing the amount of waste that is going to landfills um finding better uses for things. So a big part of that is our road to zero waste master plan which is in action right now. A big part

of that master plan has to do with composting and food waste diversion. Um, you can view the entire plan, the survey that went out, all of that good stuff on our website. We have a whole separate subpage all about the master plan if you really want to get in depth on it. Um, one of the things associated with that is in November of 2024, we um hosted a waste characterization study. So, we did a waste sort of the trash in the county. And this came from all three of the towns um from the government buildings and from the sites um all around the county. And so they sorted through all the trash that we had and they separated it into very specific categories to see, you know, what kind of stuff are people throwing away? Is there somewhere else it could go? Um and just a a brief breakdown of that. Um 15.3% of that total was things that could potentially be recovered. So this is things like textiles and leather, um scrap metal, things that have a another option but are being thrown away. Um 18% sadly was program recyclable. So these are things that we already have a stream for. So plastic bottles, recyclable, there's a lot of recyclable paper. it was about 10% was recyclable paper that is that was ending up in the trash. Um, so this is a a a way for us to see, okay, we need to make sure that we're getting that education out there to let people know these are the things you can put in your cart that are perfectly recyclable that we want. Um, and then a little over a quarter of the trash was straight up food. Not just compostables, but but food. Um, 27%. So, as a total, almost half was stuff that could be composted. So, 42% is a huge chunk of trash that doesn't need to be there. Um,

so this is a good way for us to look at it and see these are the the areas we really need to focus on. We need to make sure that we are are telling people where they can put this stuff, keep it out of the landfill. Um so one of the really important things about food waste diversion um is just reducing landfill waste as a whole. We don't have a whole lot of available landfill space in the US. We are running out. Um I don't know if anyone has heard um about the landfill in Apex, but that landfill is filling up very quickly. Um, so they need to they need to figure out another place for it, but they also need to work on reducing the amount of material that's going in there to slow that that clothes down. So, it's important across the board that we are reducing the amount of waste that's going to the trash. And as you can see, almost half doesn't need to be there. Um, the other issue with that food going in there, it's not only taking up space, but when it breaks down in an environment where there's no oxygen, um, it creates methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas. And that, um, greenhouse gas is a major contributor to climate change and global warming. We are seeing it um, ramping up every day. So, cutting down on that is really, really important. And also, we just have a lot of really valuable food waste and other compostables that can create incredible compost. Um, compost is extremely nutrient dense. It's really great for plants. It's really great for the health of your soil. Um, it reduces the the need for water and fertilizer. Um, and it can just really make your plants happy. So, um, there's a lot of reasons to keep it out of landfills, but there's there's some really good ones. Um, so the composting in Orange County, there's a couple different options. So, the main one that I'm going to focus on today is our uh food waste drop off

program. So, we operate a few different food waste programs in the county. Um, we have a few different locations. We have um six of these bins on the left. These are our big belly beans bins. These are our newest ones. Um, with these ones, you do need to download an app. It's called Big Belly Smart Compost. And you open the app. It'll tell you where all of those locations are. It'll show them on a map. You go to whatever location is closest to you. You tap unlock bin, it'll open up. You drop your food waste in there, and you're good to go. And they are available 24/7. So, unlike our other locations, um, you can go visit those whenever you please. If you wake up at 3:00 in the morning, you're like, I just really need to to get rid of this food waste. You're welcome to do that. Um, our other options are at our waste and recycling centers. So, we have all of these lovely black food waste carts. Um, and these are only available when the sites are open. Um, but there's a lot of room in there. You don't need an app for those. You just need to make sure that you're only putting the material that belongs in there in those carts. And then our other option is our um farmers market compost bins. So, these are only available on Saturdays. So, the Cargo Farmers Market, the Chapel Hill Farmers Market, and the Eno River Farmers Market. Um, it's the same black carts that are at our sites. I will say at the Eno River one, if you are in Hillsboro, we do have one of our big belly bins there. So, if you happen to be at um River Park, not on a Saturday morning, you're welcome to take your stuff there. This is a list of all of our locations. Like you can see, Eno River has two because we have both types of bins. Um, but four of our uh bins are at the 24-hour recycling drop off site. So, it's a a very comprehensive site. You can bring your recyclables, you can bring your separated glass, your cardboard, and you can bring your food waste. And all of this information is available on our website as well. So,

um just a little bit about what we accept in our program. Um fruits and vegetables. So, it's mainly just food scraps and um paper products. So, um you can even put meat and dairy and small bones, things that you wouldn't put in your backyard compost. You can put paper products just as long as they don't have like a lining on them or they don't have um any cleaning chemicals um you can put bamboo. So, if you're somebody that buys disposable silverware, um, or you need disposable silverware for some reason, uh, bamboo is is the best option for that because it can be composted pretty easily. Um, like wooden, uh, coffee stirs, if you have, um, wine bottles with the natural cork, those can go in there as well. Greasy pizza boxes. Um, that's really great because we don't really want super greasy foodcoated pizza boxes in our recycling. If your pizza boxes have a little bit of grease on them, perfectly fine recycle to recycle them. Um, but if they're really greasy, I recommend composting them instead. Or another great option is you can cut them in half. If the lid is perfectly fine, you can uh recycle the lid and compost the bottom. Um, and then tissue paper and plain wax paper are also accepted. Um, a few things that we do not accept, the big one is any compostable plastic. So, this includes those that are BPI certified. Um Amy will get a little bit more into the ins and outs of the composting process, but um compostable cups, bags, silverware, anything like that, they're not accepted in our program. Um and then just things that ordinarily wouldn't compost anyway. So, your glass, metal, plastic, foil, um stickers on your produce, styrofoam, produce baskets, anything that is not food or paper really. Um and one thing that I wanted to promote is our commercial food waste diversion program. We're very very proud of this program. Um we call them food

waste diversion stars. So these are our restaurants, um food serving businesses, schools, um county government buildings, um that are diverting their food waste from the landfill. So they get carts um with our program. Some of them are only participating from the back of house in the kitchen. Like a lot of the schools, the Chapel Hill Carbaro City Schools, um all of their kitchens are diverting their their food waste. It's a big shout out. We're very h happy about that. Um but they join the program. It's free of cost to them. So they don't have to do anything extra other than make sure that all of their staff is aware of where the food waste needs to go. Um and they get this lovely star that we have here. It has the year that they're participating on there. So, you know, a business can't join in 2024 and then in 2026 they're not doing it anymore, but they're still proudly saying that they're a part of it. Um, so they get a new sticker every year so they can have as many stickers as they want to show. We've been doing this for four, five, six years. Um, and we help them as well with the education piece. So, we make sure that they have proper signage, make sure that they understand what needs to go there, what needs to stay out. And one of the benefits for them is that they can decrease a lot of their trash hauling fees. So in restaurants, they produce a ton of trash, and a lot of that is just food. So by diverting it and having it composted instead, that can save them a lot of money on their trash. So it's a win-win for everyone really. Um, so if you know of any restaurants that are not on the program, we have a full list of all of them on our website, but if you know of a restaurant and you don't think they're participating, you can check the list and reach out to them. tell them about the program, see if they'd be interested. We'd be happy to talk with them. Um, just a couple other food waste topics um that we cover. So, in partnership with the um cooperative extension through Orange County and with the sustainability department, um we have started a food share program. This

is another way to uh decrease food waste is by keeping it in mouths, keeping people eating it. So, um there's uh five schools that are participating and they get a cart, they get a small refrigerator and any of the accepted food items can be put in there so that other students can eat them. So, um like bananas, oranges, granola bars, anything like packaged like that, um juices. So, instead of it going in the trash, it's it's feeding the kids that need it. So, that's a really great way to divert food waste without having it um composted. Um and then through the county we have a policy that is called wastewise event. So we encourage county um departments when they are hosting events with food that they are wastewise. It's a policy that got put in by the county manager in 2022. Um and the departments will fill out a form. They have a checklist of everything they need to know for how to host a wastewise event. Um, we offer our fork it over program so they can borrow sets of silverware if they want to for their event. Um, and it gives them some options for how to plan out the the food. So, um, they can tell us if they've already picked somebody to do the food and let us know what kinds of containers they'll be using. Um, we can encourage them to choose caterers that um, are a little more waste- wise and maybe use chafing dishes instead of the um, plastic boxes of food. Um, and this is just a good way for them to to understand how to reduce waste at their event. And as county employees, we want to set a good example for the residents of the county that we're not just preaching this kind of stuff. We're following through with it on our side as well. So, I'm going to turn it over to Amy, who is going to talk about um the whole industrial composting process. All of the food waste that gets collected throughout the county goes to Brooks and

gets turned into beautiful compost um that we sell here. Thank you so much, Rachel, um for this opportunity to speak to everyone today about what we do um with your compostables. We've been working with Orange County um collecting their food waste since 1999. And um I don't know what the metrics are on, you know, long-standing programs across the country, but I would bet that Orange County is most definitely a leader um in that. Um just an overview of um who we are and where we're at. Um we're in southwest Chattam County in Goldston. Uh we do have family farm roots. We started as a dairy farm and started transitioning out of the dairy business in the late 80s um into the early 90s and uh my dad at that time was already composting some dairy manure and so it was an easy transition. Um at the same time that we were getting out of the dairy business, the triangle area was really starting to grow a lot um all around us. Um, so we're really located within about an hour of most major um, growing cities in North Carolina. Um, in central North Carolina, uh, we were the first level three permitted compost facility in North Carolina. Um, there are four levels of compost facilities. Um, this means that we do not receive any bioolids or any hazardous materials or anything like that. Um, mainly agricultural um, type products is what we receive. Um those would include eggshells, food waste, leaves, wood waste, and animal manure embedding, particularly from horse farms. We work with a couple dozen horse farms as well as um a few larger equestrian facilities in North

Carolina. We're currently composting about 75,000 tons per year. Um a good chunk of that is um food waste. I believe we've received last fiscal year um over 26,000 tons of just food waste. Um so that's a lot. Um we're also selling 60 to 75,000 cubic yards per year of compost and soil blends. About um 50% of those sales are what we call a 50/50. It's a man-made sandy lom um that we can blend compost, sand, and clay um to make. And I've got a sample there if you want to pass it around. Um but this is kind of our signature product that's been used all over the triangle. Um if you have soil or really don't have a whole lot of soil to work with, a lot of landscapers or gardeners can just bring this in and just plant directly into it. Um, last time I had it tested in um, January, it was over 11% organic matter. So, if you know anything about healthy soils, um, the more organic matter you have, the healthier soil you have. Less than a,000 cubic yards. We sell everything in gold pretty much. But less than a thousand cubic yards of that um, annually are sold in one cubic foot bags, which you can also um, we're just here at Orange County. Um, we do have a turned or airrated window facility and we're focused on making compost that is safe for all purposes including food production and we do work with a lot of farmers that we'll um talk about later. This is an aerial shot of our facility. Um, we are surrounded by farmland. Um, our facility is very much um farm-based part of our farm. Um so we've got um you know some row crops and um cattle um in

woodlands as well. Everything coming into our facility is weighed and tracked um as a permitted facility in North Carolina. We are required um to report the annual tonnages um not just overall of materials but from each county that we receive. Um last fiscal year um we received um 867 over 867 tons of waste just from Orange County. Um over 700 tons of that was just food waste. Um this is our receiving area. Um we have a solidification basin which is just a concrete pit in the ground where we can receive liquid materials. Um, a lot of food waste would go in here. Um, food waste tends to be very liquidy. Um, but this is an area where we will essentially um, mix our batch recipes. Um, this is a compactor coming in um, from compost now. So, Orange County's waste would be included with this. Um, you can kind of see a back here um, a black plastic bag in there that's not supposed to be there. [laughter] So, anytime we, you know, see something like that that we can easily pull out, we do. But occasionally, you know, things will get through. Um, that should be handled, um, at the consumer side when you're actually putting the materials in the bin for sure. Um, butter compost now does a great job. Um, this just another look at pizza boxes. We get a lot of pizza boxes. A lot of pizza. I love pizza, too. Um and so from that point we will blend that food waste um with you know a lot of wood waste um essentially absorbent type materials. Um so blending the nitrogen materials um with the carbon

um and we have three different um batch recipes that we run. Um we don't make just one type of compost. Um, we run a we run breads that um are for certified organic farms. The only thing that keeps everything that we take out of organic certification unfortunately is postconumer food waste. um all of those um plastic looking cups that are made out of corn or other plant starches um they require a genetically engineered microbe to be able to turn those plant starches and sugars into something that performs like plastic and so there's no genetic modification allowed um on you know certified organic farms. So that kicks that waist stream out of being allowable um as an input on an organic farm. That is one of the reasons why um we made the decision to scale back on those materials. Um we do have quite a lot of farmers that use our products. Sometimes they aren't certified organic, but they want to follow the practices um of organic certification. So that was a big deal for us. Um but once we have those batch recipes, oh and the other two types that we make, um we make a um a batch recipe that includes basically everything that we take um including eggshells and then another one that does not include eggshells. And from those three different products, we can make a very wide variety of different compost um for different purposes. And so once we've got the materials ready, um we can either actually put them in what we call a pre-composting pile. So once they're mixed together, they can kind of stay in a static pile as long as really as long as we need to um for a few months at least until we have a window of bay available to put

that material into. Um this is the um equipment that we use um to turn these windows. [clears throat] It's a very large, very expensive machine. Um, I think this is our fourth scarab turner. They're made in Texas. Um, pretty pretty interesting piece of equipment here. But essentially acts like a big garden tiller and as it straddles that row, everything that's on the inside of that row gets flipped to the outside and vice versa. And this is how we meet um pathogen requirements. Um and as a permitted facility, we are required to have those temperatures in the window above 131 degrees uh for a period over 15 days where we turn that window at least five times. Um so that's the requirements that we meet. We will do that at the very end of our process. Um, sometimes we will start a window and then we can add other materials to it, can add moisture to it, we can add food waste to it. Um, really, you know, we do a lot of um, testing and checking as as we're building these windows. Just another shot of the window turner in action. Um, you can see the the row that he's working on. Um, little little white bits. Um, this is this is litter from postconumer food waste. If you look at the row right next to it, that's one of our NIP compliant rows, which just essentially contains um leaves and whatever clean produce we can get our hands on. Um, so a good example would be from a produce distributor um or something like a food bank where it's just strictly produce. [clears throat] another shot here. This is one of the NIP rows. Nice and clean, beautiful. And so we're constantly um putting down

rows and taking up rows to put in the curing. And so a lot of equipment is involved in that. Um we use these big haul trucks kind of like a real life taco truck um to haul that material up into um a curing pile and then it will sit in the curing pile um 4 to 12 months just depending on the really the end use of the product. Um, a lot of larger farmers will want a less cured product, whereas if you're using it for something like potting soil, you probably want the most cured material that you can get your hands on. And I did forget to mention that process in the window area um usually for us takes um at least five months um sometimes over six months.

[clears throat]

So generally from your apple core that you put into the food waste bin to the time that we can make a finished product is going to be at least about a year. This is our screening area. This is the last step um before the product that's sold or blended with anything is to screen it. [clears throat] We have a um screen that was made custom uh right in Chattam County. We're very fortunate to have a business there um to do a custom shaker deck screen for us. Excuse me. And then of course the last step is to load it up onto a truck. Um this is a tractor and trailer. This is what we would haul to most of the retail locations. We've got about a dozen um a couple dozen retail locations in Central North Carolina that carry our products. Um this truck can haul 40 cubic yards of compost and 30 cubic yards of top sold wind. It's a quad axle dump truck. This is what we would use to send to most farms and small jobs sites. Um a lot of landscaping sites and homeowners as

well. And it can haul 25 cubic yards of top soil blend and 30 of compost. And this is a small amount of bags that we send out. They come um 60 on a pallet of those one cubic foot bags. [clears throat] Okay. So, you know, anytime you um listen to someone, I think it's really important to to know what their influence are and kind of, you know, what has shaped them. These are just some of the things that have shaped me over the years. Um, this quote here from Bill Mollis, I don't know if anyone's familiar with him, but he's kind of known as the father of permaculture. Um, it's got fantastic books. Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple. And I think, you know, several years from now, we're going to look back and realize that, man, we really could, you know, this is not hard. It's embarrassing um the point at which we are really with our waist streams. Um and my dad told me this early on. I actually interviewed him. Um it's my uh first year in college and I was tasked to do um a large presentation on something that I knew a lot about and I thought, well gosh, I really don't know a whole lot about anything. So um so I interviewed him. Uh this was back in the day where you had like the little tape recorders and everything. Interviewed him and this is one thing that he told me that always stuck with me. Always work with mother nature. anytime you work against it, you might as well be pedalling backwards. And I think, you know, we can kind of see that pedaling backwards in society in general. Also, John Kemp, um he has a business called Advancing Eco Agriculture. He is tasked to help a lot of farmers. Um [clears throat] but a couple things that he he said that has really um impacted me. Healthy plants can become

completely resistant to diseases and insects. Is that not amazing? This is the power of nature. Um, chemistry cannot overcome what is lacking in biology, but biology can overcome what is lacking in chemistry. That is amazing. Okay. So, whenever you send off your soil sample and they, you know, you get it back and you're looking at it, you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, you know, I need to adjust here and there." Um, biology is often one of the best ways to make those adjustments. And actually, if you pick up a gardening book, I don't care, any gardening book, um, one of the first sections, first chapters, um, they're going to tell you, hey, you should add organic matter to your soil. Compost is a wonderful organic matter addition. Also some books um Sir Albert Howard um the soil and health was really impactful um as a great read if you ever want to go back and see you know what happened throughout agriculture um he talks a lot about what was going on at the research stations whenever they kind of made the switch over to more of a chemicalbased approach to agriculture. So um definitely worth um the read there. He also put out one pay dirt farming and gardening with compost that is that is relevant to you know farmers, gardeners, anyone that is using um compost. There's some really good tips and tricks in there that that could certainly help. And more recently a book was put out called the living soil handbook by Jesse Frost. Um he has a YouTube channel called No Teal Growers. Um, and I think overall just offers a lot of good wisdom in that book about how to build your soil. Okay. So, why use compost? A lot of reasons, right? Well, the first one, soil is a filter and a storage unit for our water supply. So, that's, you know, the type

of salt that you have is really going to determine um how much is infiltrating. You really need a sponge. Um so for our water quality and quantity we really have to focus on the soil. Um also the microbiology and soil is a strong determining factor for nutrient uptake in many diseases. Um soil health is always going to lead to animal and human health. Um mental, physical and emotional health is near impossible without a healthy gut and microbiome. Where do you get that healthy microbiome? Go into the garden. Go to the farm. That's where it's at. Um, and the food that you eat, you know, from that garden and from that farm will really impact your health. Um, we work with a lot of farmers and farmers increasingly are more aware that soil is really their real bank account. That is where they're going to get their ultimate paycheck from how their soil actually performs. sight soil preparation preparation is going to pay off now as well as decades from now. What you do when you put that tree or that shrub in the ground um really is going to you're going to see it in 10 years and you're going to see it in two years. Um but if you build it, they will come. If you have a lot of organic matter in your soil, if you've ever noticed, you really start to get the worms there. And I don't know if you've priced worm poop lately. I have. It's very expensive. Very expensive. So, if you if you can add materials to draw um that good biology to your soil, um it's it's a lot cheaper. Okay. Now, this is why um compost is so impactful particularly for central North Carolina. Um if you look on the left, you can see an optimal soil. It's got almost a foot of workable soil for your plant roots to grow. Um but into

North Carolina we might have a little bit of organic matter layer and I would question that. Um but then it goes just right into subs soil and so you know a lot of people from up north and out in the Midwest and California they move here and you know they call they find out about us they call they're like where is your soil? Like this is terrible. Um, it's just due to, you know, not only how our soil was formed, but also the heat and humidity and things like that. We just, it's hard to build soil like you can up north and out in the Midwest. But you can absolutely turn this central North Carolina soil into something that performs even better than the optimal soil. I promise you, I've seen it done many, many times. Good reasons to add compost. Okay. Anytime you want to improve the structure through incorporation essentially to make top soil out of that sub soil that you have. Anytime you're going to switch land from forestry or pasture into a crop production system, that's a great time to bring in a load of compost. Planting any type of perennial areas. um orchards, berries, pollinator strips, which are becoming increasingly popular within small farms of North Carolina, probably largely thanks to um Debbie Ru and her program in Chadam County as an extension agent. uh windbreaks, you know, um the property that I'm on, there's been a lot of timber cut around it recently, and if you notice when you remove the trees, you get a lot more wind damage and storms and also a lot more drying out on your property. So, you know, putting in a windbreak is a really good tactic um to protect your landscaping and and just landscaping in general. for soil remediation. Um composting is the composting process

itself um is a remediation technique for contaminated soil. Um but using the compost on your soil is a good remediation technique if you think that you know you've had something crazy going on on that property and you want to um try to do the best you can with it. also for the synergistic effects of other additions, you know, diversity really works. So, all of the different organic materials that you can add to the soil, you know, compost is a really good carrier for those as well. Uh, nutrient-dense vegetable production, which is what most of the farmers, not farmers, but consistently buy compost from us, that's that's exactly what they're doing. um replacing the organic matter layer by broadcast application. Um you can do that little by little over the years. Wherever the soils to be disturbed and planted, great time to add some compost and really just overall to add beneficial biology, nutrients, organic matter, stable, good stable humus. Um increase your buffering capacity and in general just to feed the soil. And when people talk about feeding the soil, this is actually the process. Uh we have, you know, the nitrogen cycle, hydraulic cycle. We have a lot of different cycles in nature. Um the visa phase cycle is just one of them. It was actually discovered kind of recently in 2010 and it's where um researchers looked at a plant root and how it was receiving nutrients and they found out that um what happens is a bacteria will enter this root tip. um the plant will absorb whatever it's carrying, say for example calcium. Um and then the bacteria can exit through the root hairs and because this is a natural cycle, it can do it over and

over and over again. Um and it is thought that this system is so intelligent that the plant can actually communicate with this bacteria. So if it brings in calcium or whatever, um it can say, "Hey, go find me magnesium, a little bacteria as a little worker, and it goes and does it and goes right back through it." Um so it's fascinating system here, but [clears throat] not many people know about us, so that's why I wanted to bring it up. This is what our compost would look like under the microscope. Um you can see, you know, some fulvic acid, a little humic acid here. Um the angular shapes are minerals. Um all the little dots or bubble looking things are bacteria. Um and then in the middle here it looks that that's actually a fungal hide. Um we have a lot of people that will call and and ask for a fungal dominant compost. I can't make that. Um because of the nature of um our turning and and just our process in general, we cannot make a humble dominant compost. But you could absolutely make that at home for sure, very easily. Um, but what happens is what little um fungal strands that we have in our compost whenever we screen it, we chop them up. So, we kind of prune these little suckers and um but they can regrow once you get them in place um and and situ. [clears throat] It's another um another visual under the microscope of our compost. Um this big blob here um in the top corner is humic acid. Um the lighter kind of honey colored is fulvic acid. Um so it was explained to me by a professor one time um that humopulic acid is actually very important for cellular growth and what

happens and I guess backing up a step a step um humic and fulvic acid is produced [cough and clears throat] throughout the decomposition process. um lighter stages of decomposition producing fulvic acid and uh the more basically the most decomposed that you can get is is humic acid. And so what happens is fulvic acid is responsible for opening that cell and humic acid will feed it. And this may be, you know, in in agriculture um kind of when we stopped adding a lot of organic matter back to the fields. This this may very well um explain one just one of the reasons why our food is not as nutrientdense as it used to be. Um but in the middle of this um this little twig looking thing uh worm looking thing is actually beneficial nematode. Um, and it's often referred to as a fertilizer bag opener because as it eats, it excretes ammonia right at the plant's roots. So, if we're worried about fertilizer not being available, just remember nature has it covered. Okay? If if we can feed the soil, um, we can get all that we need. Okay? So, how to build the soil? Well, first you have to know what what do you have? Do you do you have good top soil or do you just have subs soil? Um simplest test, um how far can you push in spade in? And if you can't very far, then you probably need some compost. Um uh if it's a, you know, if you physically see worms and it's nice and it smells earthy, it's a darker soil, um you probably don't need any compost. you probably just need to plant, you know, have a good um planting schedule on that

soil. Um, also use your resources. Always look for local inputs. Um, those are going to be the best inputs that you can get for your farm or garden. Um, and then with compost and other plant, animal, and mineral sources, there are a ton of them. If you go to any um agriculture supply store, um a lot of things that you can add for mineral and and organic matter content, but most importantly, get it growing. Um you can see a cover crop if you have really poor soil. Um [clears throat] want to keep the soil covered with plants or mulch. And compost can actually act um both as a mulch and a feed for the soil. A lot of small farmers, you'll see um in a video later, they kind of use it almost as a mulch on top. Um putting about an inch every year. Um keep the biology active with living roots. Always want to have something living growing there. Um and diversity, always, always diversity. Um it works so well. Um just a few farmers that we work with in Orange County. Tinmother's Farm does a beautiful job. Um we have so many um farmer customers that have been inspired by Tin Mother's Farm. Um they do a great job. Um this is just the view of their their farm here. Um they have a very neat and organized operation. Um and truly are inspirational. Um it's it's absolutely beautiful. This is just a good shot of, you know, how they would use compost, lay it down, and then plant directly into it.

It's so impactful. So, um, this was done in 2024 by PBS, um, their science, I can't remember, SC. Um, and so you can find this online. Um, but it's about a seven

minute video. Um, talks about two farmers that we supply compost to and what they're doing. um within the county. Um he's working with a group called Table Carper. And so the food that he grows is going directly to feed um kids in Orange County. Um and then there's another farmer here as well. Um and so this way of um farming is pretty impactful um both on the land and the quality of produce that you can grow from it. Um in 2020 I was like you know let me let me just try out what all these farmers are doing um with our compost and it works pretty phenomenal. Um I started with, you know, really just a patch of grass and uh tarp it for about a month and then build everything on top. Um you know, layering compost and then uh your walkways in the middle, putting mulch. Um and I will say that we got a lot of rain that year. I mean, we got some 5 in rains at one time. And there was never a time that I could not go out and do anything that I wanted to in my garden. It essentially makes your space a full sponge um to soak everything up. Um you know, when people teal their garden and they leave the soil exposed and you get five inches of rain, you're not going out there. You're, you know, you're going to be trekking in mud if that's the case. Um but this is just the way to do it. Um works so well. Um, and this was, you know, um, I think in December, I had a bucket, um, that I just sat there and, uh, pulled it up and I thought, "Oh, wow. That is really interesting to see this micro right here. This is so important and it's just happening all on its own. I didn't I didn't purchase it at the store. Um, I

didn't purposefully add it. Um, it's it's just there. It just naturally um, accumulates. Um, great garden. Um, my son was two years old and he just had a blast in this garden. Um, it's important for me um to be okay with all the the materials that we're taking because my kids are pretty much eating it. I mean, honestly, they're just it's getting all over. Um, but you can get a lot of production out of a um what would be termed a market garden. Um, okay. So, we talked about all the good things. Now, let's get to the problems and concerns. This is like the real meat, right? Um, [clears throat] okay. So, unfavorable weather conditions. That would be the first and foremost. We just like any other farmer are subject to, you know, drought conditions and heavy rainfall. And, you know, that does affect us some. [clears throat] And then the contaminants that you can easily see. And for everybody that's that's ever used our compost and had to pick out, you know, a piece of plastic, like I sincerely apologize. That is not our intent. Um we spend a lot of money um trying to make sure that that doesn't happen. Um most of that is going to be of course coming in with postconumer um food waste. Most of that is easily screened out or is at least light enough to surface. um you know, you may go back to a bed and and see that um after you've left it sitting for I don't know, a couple weeks um there's a piece of plastic just kind of rose to the surface. It's almost like the earth kind of rejects it. So, I guess that's good. Um and then the contaminants that are invisible. Some scary stuff here. Persistent herbicides. This could very well be coming in on any of the yard waste that we take as well as any of the horsemen that we take. Um although we do have the farms that we work with um you

know to sign a contract saying that they're going to source their hay properly and not treat their pastures with this persistent herbicide. Um we're not stupid. You know people lie um just point blank people will lie about it. Um and and they would not be any wild supplies on it. Um, also Pifas, you know, well, that's a big big conversation. Pifos. Um, you know, it's everywhere, right? It's in us. It's in our drinking water. It's in rain water. Kind of scary. Um, what about any old forever chemicals that we haven't yet realized as a problem? This possibility. What about new forever chemicals coming to market? We have zero protection. you, me, you know, our business, we've got zero protection against anything. So, all that being said, how do we handle it? Um, well, we have to manage those concerns. Um, again, you know, my kids are playing in this stuff. I'm touching this stuff. Um, we need to air on the side of caution and limit acceptable materials to basically those that I would put in my own garden. And so, that's what we do. Um but also we have to live in reality um and realize that everything is suspect. Um even the leaves coming in I don't trust them. Um so our treatment protocol is essentially a mix of dilution time and biology. um first and foremost we would never um like with the persistent herbicides where they have become an issue um is where you're essentially composting just yard waste or just horse manure um and you don't blend it with anything. So it's very important to have a very diverse blend of feed stocks. Um diversity does work also time in storage in that pre-omposting pile before it even goes to the window. And again after

we go to the window um and airate it and as well as in curing also we kind of have to trust the system a little bit um and just kind of ask the biology to really handle it with each turn. Uh relying on oxygen, sunlight, you know, sunlight will break down a lot of these chemicals, the persistent herbicides, um and just in general the decomposition process. You know, the bacteria are here to break things down. And like I said earlier, um, composting itself is a known remediation technique for contaminated soils like those that are contaminated with petroleum. Um, most of the chemicals that are going to be on your fruits and vegetables as residues, um, and really anything, um, are petroleum based. Um, so we hope that those things are broken down. Um, but we really just want to let bacteria and fungi do its job. And if nature's technology doesn't work, then nothing else can work. Okay. [clears throat] All right. So, can nature keep up? The short answer of it, yes, I think so. I I have to believe that. Um, okay. So, I'll try not to take too much time on this. Um, but I wanted to use this as an opportunity to kind of let you know um something that is affecting the composting industry, particularly our facility in North Carolina. In 2020, um, financial assurance, which was originally intended for landfills, um, was placed on large level three compost facilities in North Carolina such as us. Um that's the uh rule and the uh general statute there if you want to look it up. Under the current rules as they are written currently um it would require us to put about a half a million dollars um

into a trust account um to fund the cost of hauling composting materials um to the landfill and over $400,000 of that would just be landfill tipping fees. Um, another option we could go with a bond. Um, annual cost of that would be10 to $15,000 per year. Um, but we would also at that same time have to set aside $1500 to $200,000 into a trust account. Um, essentially to be controlled by DEQ in case anything was to ever happen. Um, essentially we're asked to prepay landfill fees for materials that shouldn't be going to landfills and in some cases are banned in landfills. Okay. So, why um these are the reasons why we've been told we need this in place in case we all die at the same time. um meteor hits us, aliens abduct us, or we just choose to walk away from our family farm where three of the owners, I'm one of them, um live uh farm and raise their families and of course leave all of our assets behind in a mess. Um and of course all assets at the compost site located on our farm are considered worthless in this financial equation. um the value of millions of dollars that we've spent in equipment and the finished compost itself um cannot be considered accessible. Now the very interesting thing about this whole situation is that if we were to sell out to private equity or a very large corporation this financial assurance rule would not apply to them. There's something called a corporate test um which says if you have your closure cost which for us would be half a million dollars um plus $10 million then you're good you're good

to go. So, the woman-owned family farm business, you know, that has been here for our communities um since day one, um we would be financially asked to do this whereas a large corporation coming into the situation um would not. So, I think that's a bit of a problem. Um, don't get mad about it, be very respectful about it, but these are the people that, you know, if you have any environmental concerns about anything, these are the people that you should contact. Okay. Um, there's something called the Environmental Management Commission, which is 15 appointed members. Um, I think there are two appointed by the um, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The rest are appointed either by the governor, the house, or the senate. Um, you can contact Miss Lois Thomas um with DEEQ. She's the recording clerk, and she will gladly send you, um, a contact list for all 50 members. Um, Michael Scott, who's the division of waste management director, um, would be another contact. He didn't have his email online, so I didn't want to put that out there, but, um, that's his number. You can give him a call. and also you're a North Carolina senator or representative or both. Um we've been working on this as the North Carolina Composting Council um to have a legislative fix and [clears throat] we thought we were somewhere and at the last minute and the regulatory reform bill it got pulled and so now we're back to square one still in this position. Um so if you are so led to you know be concerned about this issue um that your composter is facing right now um please do reach out

and with that I'll take some questions. I hate ending on a bad note. And it's not a bad note, you know. Um what you should realize is that you know those people um on that contact slide um they are just people and they are in very important positions to make decisions not just for your health and your environment where you live at but for your grandkids. you know, the decisions they're making right now um will determine how our grandkids what basically what kind of messes are our grandkids have to clean up. So, it's important that [cough and clears throat] they hear from you. So, all right. So, thank you