Update:
Hello All, A Breath of Free Air!
The last of couple weeks have been amazing. Since rolling out significant improvements at the Sustainable Practices Lab and reaching our goal of capturing virtually 100 percent of food waste at the prison---both of which we mentioned in our last newsletter---we've now turned our attention to working on the final end product: the compost. This month Tomas, Juan, and I officially became MI2 workers and transferred jobs to the outside composting facility, which means everyday we turn in our cell keys and walk out the back gate of the prison! (It also means we end everyday by walking back in, which admittedly isn't so great.) Our new work area is the landing spot for most of the food waste we have worked so hard to collect and process this last year. Once at the landing spot, it gets mixed with wood chips and fed into a large EnviroDrum in-vessel composter. Bertha---that's what we named her---rotates the food waste in her belly for about a week before the compost comes out the other end, falls on a conveyor belt, and ends up in a pile. We put that pile on air to finish the drying process and then we sift it on a huge shaker table. The end product is an incredible earthy black compost.
We make thousands of pounds of the stuff. And to be honest it feels a bit like alchemy to start with a disgusting barrel of garbage and end up with rich soil.
Of course, the fact that we're doing all this next to a 20-acre field full of deer and ducks and coyotes is pretty amazing. The fact that when we need to move the compost we jump in a Skid Steer and scoop it up instead of grabbing a shovel is pretty awesome too.
KEY POINTS
Point of Perserverance:
It took us quite a bit longer than we had hoped to get to this point. We have had to overcome massive opposition. Our days used to start at 4:00 AM, elbow deep in food waste feeding Ol' Bessy, and end at 6:00 PM in the dining hall where we would stand behind waste cans and encourage food-waste separation. Now we are starting to see the finish line.
Point of Practice:
We talked in the last newsletter about our pair of Ayam Cemani chickens---and guess what? Our hen had been sitting on a clutch of eggs, and this last week four little fluff balls hatched out. All the books say Ayams are notoriously difficult to get to breed so we are really proud papas. Our rooster, Corbin, is pretty proud too.
Point of Peace:
Another key aspect of EARN is forest therapy and the need for longterm incarcerated folks to experience the healing power of nature. This last couple of weeks has provided bone-deep confirmation of that power. We start each day looking out at the field that has several low spots where water has collected. And every morning flights of ducks and geese cruise in and land with a splash. All day long hawks and eagles scour the field for mice and moles, and by lunchtime there is usually a small herd of blacktail deer feeding along the fringes.
THE PLANET
Our new spot is full of opportunities to improve the systems and add our knowledge and experience to the mix. Our new boss is great and really open to letting us test out new ideas. We have already set up three large worm bins and are currently building out a chicken composting area.
BIG IDEA
A large part of the EARN mission is to help people coming out of longterm confinement develop business models. The work we're doing on the "commercial" side of composting gives us a tremendous opportunity to develop large-scale systems and also allows us to continuously refine business models around these systems. This is important. According to the United Nations, over 1.3 billion tons of food waste is generated every year. It's going to take a massive effort with large-scale systems to address the problem.
FINAL THOUGHTS...
Being MI2 workers means our days are better and the air is freer but more than anything it means we are a lot closer to being completely free and able to make the dreams of EARN a reality. Thanks for all your support and for being in our corner.