The Community Composting Program at Koiner Farm is creating a truly closed-loop, micro-food system in the East Silver Spring neighborhood.
COMMUNITY COMPOSTING
AT KOINER FARM
Sign Up here to drop your food scraps at Koiner Farm
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See our Compost Rules for Koiner Farm here
The Community Composting Program at Koiner Farm was established in 2020. This program provides on-farm composting capabilities for up to 50 neighboring households. This program is led by CKC's Farm Managers with support from interns an volunteers who work together to learn the ins-and-outs of operating a 3-bin hot compost system on an urban farm.
Last year, the Community Composting Program at Koiner Farm diverted approximately 12,800 pounds of kitchen scraps from the waste stream and produced 18.5 cubic yards of quality compost that was used directly on the fields at Koiner Farm.
Special thanks to the Maryland Sierra Club for providing much of the financial support to construct the 3-Bin Composter at Koiner Farm in 2019 and advance the program in 2022.
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If you have any questions about the Community Composting Program at Koiner Farm by donating your food scraps, email emily@ckcfarming.org.​
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HOW DOES COMMUNITY COMPOSTING WORK?
How does community compost work? As shown in the above graphic, Community Composting is a hyper-local, closed-loop system that provides the double benefits of not only reducing carbon emissions, but sequestering carbon as well. Almost all of our compost inputs - including farm scraps, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and saw dust - come from sources within walking distance of Koiner Farm. Local businesses, such as Prime Coffee, save their coffee grounds for us to pick up. Neighbors save their kitchen scraps and bring them to Koiner Farm on their own schedule. ​
RULES AND REGS
OF COMPOSTING AT KOINER FARM
The Composting System at Koiner Farm is a coordinate and scheduled system. Please do your best to abide by the Rules and Regs of this program, in order to keep your kitchen scraps moving through the system smoothly.
RULE #1
Remove all stickers from peels.
RULE #2
Cut food scraps into 1-inch pieces and crush up egg shells.
RULE #3
Never put plastic (not even compostable plastic) in our bins.
RULE #4
No printer paper or paper with ink in our bins.
RULE #5
No animal products - including meat, fish, bones, and especially pet waste (eeew!) - in our bins.
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RULE #6
No cooking oils, butters, or salad dressings in our bins.
RULE #7
Never leave your kitchen scraps where animals could get them! All kitchen scraps should be placed into the air-tight 5-gallon buckets located within the metal trashcans.
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RULE #8
Always press out the air and cover your scraps with sawdust when adding scraps.
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RULE #9
If you are a "bin-swapper" (i.e. practicing Bokashi composting at your own house and dropping off your own air-tight 5-gallon bucket of Bokashi-treated kitchen scraps), please place your bucket in the designated area behind the composter.
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RULE #10
If you are not sure what to do, please ask someone at the farm, or send a WhatsApp message to Hannah at (412-979-1172).
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Compost for life...