The UA’s Office of Sustainability Compost Cats invites the public to help combat food waste this holiday season and join its Bucket Program.
Each year, millions of tons of waste enter Tucson’s landfills. About 40% of that waste is compostable organic materials, including produce scraps, plant trimmings and coffee grounds and other common household items.
Composting is the natural process of recycling organic matter, such as plant trimmings and food scraps, into a valuable fertilizer that can enrich soil and plants.
Since its founding in 2011, the Compost Cats have diverted more than 20 million pounds of food waste from local landfills. It’s the only organization in Southern Arizona that accepts large volumes of food scraps, manure, brush and other landscaping materials. In 2014, the organization partnered with the city of Tucson Environmental Services to collect more food scraps from across town, working with over 100 local businesses, diverting over 1 million pounds of waste.
Four years later, Compost Cats transitioned from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Cooperative Extension to the Office of Sustainability. Since then, it has been working with the university to strengthen its public education, research and outreach efforts.
“We provide all of this community engagement to be more meaningful and impactful, changing the community behavior to divert food waste,” said Dr. Ilse Rojas-Hamilton, Compost Cats’ program manager.
Rojas-Hamilton, who joined the Office of Sustainability in July 2019, brought 12 years of experience in interdisciplinary research, environmental consulting, outreach and education programs development and mentorship.
In January 2021, she helped open a compost operation with the city of Tucson Environmental Services at the Los Reales Sustainability Campus, formerly known as the Los Reales Landfill. The regional facility is the only active landfill managed and owned by the city.
Community outreach
Rojas-Hamilton said Compost Cats works to educate the campus and the community at its demonstration sites and workshops. In the past year, it has reached out to more than 6,000 people, including K-12 students, through projects like the UA Community Garden.
“We deliver experiential learning and hands-on education,” Rojas-Hamilton said, noting that school children who visit the garden love to see the worms.
“A lot of my work is with education and making demonstration sites to teach people about what we do and things we can do specifically in Tucson to live more sustainably as a community,” said Isabelle Young, a student Compost Cats specialist and a senior studying art and visual culture education with teaching emphasis.
“I really love being involved with kids and master gardeners programs, it feels like we’re really making a difference,” Young said.
She started working with Compost Cats in 2021 and became familiar with the program’s UA Community Garden during her work with Students for Sustainability.
A popular service, Compost Cats’ Bucket Program is a paid residential compost collection program that provides participants with 2- or 5-gallon buckets and a list of compostable items. After participants fill their buckets or containers, they can drop off their food scraps to the Community Garden at 1400 E. Mabel Street. There, student compost specialists weigh the food waste and check for contamination before turning it into compost.
Visitors and campus affiliates take household items like bread, flower arrangements and watermelon to the Community Garden. Jackson said that the Bucket Program has reached close to 400 participants.
“We have services Monday through Saturday,” Rojas-Hamilton said. “We have drop-off (sites) at three different locations across town to make them more accessible.” The program is free for students, but all users must pay a one-time $20 to $30 onboarding fee.
“If compost is done right, it doesn’t stink,” Young said. It needs a good ratio of carbon and nitrogen sources, Rojas-Hamilton added.
Compost takes three to five months to complete and be usable, Young explained, adding it requires the same commitment as having a pet.
Brandon Green is a junior studying microbiology who has served as the Cats’ compost systems team lead for four months. He regularly visits the garden to check on and activate the compost stages.
“You really become a part of the sustainability community in town,” Green said. “You get to see big projects people are working on and it’s really inspiring to be at the center of it because we are making a difference.”
Compost Cats coordinator Kenzie Jackson added, “When we onboard participants, we give them a rundown of everything that is and isn’t compostable.”
Jackson earned a bachelor’s degree in natural resources with an emphasis on conservation biology in May 2021 from the UA. He worked for Cooper Center for Environmental Learning’s outreach team, providing hands-on, research-based programs in environmental education.
Food Cycle
Compost Cats’ Food Cycle team lead Jose Angel Garcia said 15 Tucson businesses compost with it.
The commercial program provides companies with designated containers that city workers take to the Los Reales Sustainability Campus. Compost Cats donates compost to Tucson Community Gardens, which has about 22 refugee and community gardens across the city, to Bucket Program members, local gardeners, schools and anybody else who might need compost, he said.
Garcia is a graduating senior studying interdisciplinary studies with an emphasis in economy and industry, with a minor in Spanish. He’ll work for the city after graduation.
Some of the businesses who participate in the food recycle program include local coffee shops such as Raging Sage Coffee Roasters, Starbucks at the UA Bookstore and other restaurants on campus, Hotel Congress and the 3000 Club – Home of Market on the Move, which rescues produce from purveyors in Nogales, Arizona, and more recently the federal prison.
Composting helps prevent the generation of harmful greenhouse gasses such as methane and carbon dioxide, which trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to the global climate crisis. According to the Yale School of the Environment, “Many scientists say that regenerative agricultural practices can turn back the carbon block, reducing atmospheric CO2 while also boosting soil productivity and increasing resilience to floods and drought.”
“A lot of households that join us reduce about 20% of their household waste,” Garcia said. “It’s also very accessible for people that might not have the space at home.”
In addition to the diversion of food waste interception and diversion, the organization’s scope of work includes initiatives to combat food insecurity in Southern Arizona. According to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, as of 2019 (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), almost 19% of Tucson’s population lived in poverty and 15.4% of the community was food insecure.
Food insecurity defined by Healthy People 2030 is, “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” 13.8 million households were food insecure at some point of 2020.
Compost Cats has been increasingly involved in the redistribution of still-edible foods to groups such as the University of Arizona Campus Pantry and the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona through such programs.
The UA Student Union packs its uneaten food into tight containers that are donated to the Campus Pantry to be distributed among food insecure students on campus, Rojas-Hamilton said.
Anyone affiliated with the UA can access the Campus Pantry.
Common misconceptions
On its social media, the Compost Cats host a series called, “Compost Misconceptions.” One example is that citrus can upset the pH balance for worms. In backyard systems, the peels do take longer to break down because their fat cells are resistant to decomposition. They break down perfectly in commercial facilities, Jackson said. They are also natural deterrents to unwanted animals and give off nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that assist with breakdown.
“There’s a really big misconception about bioplastics,” Jackson said. Items like plastic bags or forks may market themselves as compostable, but in reality these items call for bioreactors that reach up to 300 degrees.
“While no at home systems get that high, ours gets to like 160, 170,” she said. “It does what we like to call greenwashing. In reality it’s just going to the landfill.”
Looking ahead
The amount of household food waste spikes during the holidays, according to Jackson.
Social media campaigns such as “Food Storage Fridays,” educate the public on how to properly store food or create new recipes using leftovers.
“There are certain foods that if you store next to each other, the chemicals released make them decompose faster,” Jackson said.
Even making small strides to store fruits and vegetables at proper temperatures can make a difference. Jackson said the Compost Cats include links for more information about the science behind composting.
While all landfills do have lifespans, many are reaching capacity. Oftentimes, they are located in or near marginalized communities who can then suffer disproportionate negative impacts on public health, safety and environmental quality.
By diverting a portion of the current organic inputs entering local landfills, Compost Cats is helping them from filling as quickly, significantly extending the lives of existing landfills.
Through waste diversion and materials cycling, Compost Cats continues to fight for environmental justice, ensuring equitable access to natural resources and improving wellness for all.
“It’s a really gratifying way to connect not just to the people of Tucson but also to the land, history and the future,” Young said.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2022.
