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You’re a what?
Why, we`re a "non-profit, worker-run, composting collective." We`re also folks who don`t mind getting stinky once in a while and love magically transmogrifying food waste into beautiful, rich soil.
We’re a non-profit. The money we get goes towards paying our [small] salaries, maintaining the trucks, repairing the bins, researching new technologies, and so forth. We aim for self-sufficiency, but our primary objective is to help close the cycle of food production by waste diversion and composting education. Incidentally, we`re also a non-profit in the legal, 501[c][3] sense.
We’re also a worker run collective. Although we are UC Berkeley employees, and greatly indebted to the wonderful people on the 4th floor for helping us navigate the intricacies of getting and keeping track of our money, we make all the decisions -- obtaining funds, operations, future plans, hiring, and so forth. You could say we exist in a state of parasitic autonomy. [More accurately symbiotic -- see below] we try to operate without a hierarchy -- to do this, we don`t have bosses, and the decisions are made by consensus. [For an explanation of consensus, see on conflict and consensus] to avoid consternation, we have a responsibility structure -- four Coordinators take responsibility for each of four areas: Composting Methods, Site Coordinator, Marketing Outreach and Education, Truck Maintenance, and Operation and Finance. These Coordinators are entrusted with the responsibility of making sure that everything is happening that should be. They also make sure that the knowledge corresponding to their area gets disseminated to other collective members. In practice, most people do a bit of everything, but this structure releases each person from worrying about whether the oil`s been changed or if the payroll`s been turned in.
We do composting. You could also say we do "organics recycling", or "divert waste with high-volume decomposition systems", or "rot stuff." We use natural processes to turn food waste into a nutrient-rich, soil-building material, "recycling" all that effort the orange tree put into each peel. Composting reduces waste entering landfills, reduces our dependence on the petrochemicals used to make chemical fertilizer, and rebuilds our disappearing topsoil. Not only that, but composting is fun [like having a pet], and keeps your trash from stinking. Sometimes it boggles our minds that not everyone composts.
Students, huh?
We are a U.C. Berkeley student group, employed under ASUC Auxiliary. We have a symbiotic relationship with the university: we benefit from office space, a composting site, payroll accounting, and periodic ASUC funding; we divert some of the campus waste from the landfill, helping the university fulfill its waste diversion goals and feel good about itself, educate the campus community about composting, provide composting consulting services, and provide practical opportunities for students.
As a student group, we are about half current students at UCB and half recent graduates, students taking a semester off, and other folks looking to learn from the experience. We provide the opportunity to participate in running a small nonprofit, research new composting methods, write grants, develop education programs, and work collectively. This is particularly suited to recent graduates and folks taking a semester off to look for practical experience in an empowering environment.
Where did you come up with your methods?
People have been composting for millennia. In the spirit of modern technological servitude, we use a few innovations. During the first years of the collective, food waste was collected in 30-gallon plastic non-wheeled bins, picked up in a dump truck, manually chopped and mixed with sharpened shovels, and shoveled into the bins. Those were the brave old days, when everyone got filthy and loved it. Today, we collect food waste in wheeled Toter© bins, use a hydraulic lift to dump it into our specially designed [by Brian Matthews] mixer truck, where rotating augers [designed for processing and dispensing animal feed] chop it up. There’s even a hydraulic chute to kick the mash out into the compost bins. The collective designed and built some forty worm bins [or vermitopias]. We revised the design in 2004, and we are in the process of building 10 new worm bins.
Why, we`re a "non-profit, worker-run, composting collective." We`re also folks who don`t mind getting stinky once in a while and love magically transmogrifying food waste into beautiful, rich soil.
We’re a non-profit. The money we get goes towards paying our [small] salaries, maintaining the trucks, repairing the bins, researching new technologies, and so forth. We aim for self-sufficiency, but our primary objective is to help close the cycle of food production by waste diversion and composting education. Incidentally, we`re also a non-profit in the legal, 501[c][3] sense.
We’re also a worker run collective. Although we are UC Berkeley employees, and greatly indebted to the wonderful people on the 4th floor for helping us navigate the intricacies of getting and keeping track of our money, we make all the decisions -- obtaining funds, operations, future plans, hiring, and so forth. You could say we exist in a state of parasitic autonomy. [More accurately symbiotic -- see below] we try to operate without a hierarchy -- to do this, we don`t have bosses, and the decisions are made by consensus. [For an explanation of consensus, see on conflict and consensus] to avoid consternation, we have a responsibility structure -- four Coordinators take responsibility for each of four areas: Composting Methods, Site Coordinator, Marketing Outreach and Education, Truck Maintenance, and Operation and Finance. These Coordinators are entrusted with the responsibility of making sure that everything is happening that should be. They also make sure that the knowledge corresponding to their area gets disseminated to other collective members. In practice, most people do a bit of everything, but this structure releases each person from worrying about whether the oil`s been changed or if the payroll`s been turned in.
We do composting. You could also say we do "organics recycling", or "divert waste with high-volume decomposition systems", or "rot stuff." We use natural processes to turn food waste into a nutrient-rich, soil-building material, "recycling" all that effort the orange tree put into each peel. Composting reduces waste entering landfills, reduces our dependence on the petrochemicals used to make chemical fertilizer, and rebuilds our disappearing topsoil. Not only that, but composting is fun [like having a pet], and keeps your trash from stinking. Sometimes it boggles our minds that not everyone composts.
Students, huh?
We are a U.C. Berkeley student group, employed under ASUC Auxiliary. We have a symbiotic relationship with the university: we benefit from office space, a composting site, payroll accounting, and periodic ASUC funding; we divert some of the campus waste from the landfill, helping the university fulfill its waste diversion goals and feel good about itself, educate the campus community about composting, provide composting consulting services, and provide practical opportunities for students.
As a student group, we are about half current students at UCB and half recent graduates, students taking a semester off, and other folks looking to learn from the experience. We provide the opportunity to participate in running a small nonprofit, research new composting methods, write grants, develop education programs, and work collectively. This is particularly suited to recent graduates and folks taking a semester off to look for practical experience in an empowering environment.
Where did you come up with your methods?
People have been composting for millennia. In the spirit of modern technological servitude, we use a few innovations. During the first years of the collective, food waste was collected in 30-gallon plastic non-wheeled bins, picked up in a dump truck, manually chopped and mixed with sharpened shovels, and shoveled into the bins. Those were the brave old days, when everyone got filthy and loved it. Today, we collect food waste in wheeled Toter© bins, use a hydraulic lift to dump it into our specially designed [by Brian Matthews] mixer truck, where rotating augers [designed for processing and dispensing animal feed] chop it up. There’s even a hydraulic chute to kick the mash out into the compost bins. The collective designed and built some forty worm bins [or vermitopias]. We revised the design in 2004, and we are in the process of building 10 new worm bins.
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