PALMER TWP., Pa. — A township landscaper has launched a composting pilot program in an effort to tamp down on local waste headed to landfills.
Ryan Sepaniak, owner of RJS Lawn Care, in December began Easton Eco-Swap.
Through the program, residents’ food scraps are collected and — with the help of worms and black soldier fly larvae — turned into nutrient-rich compost that can be used as a natural fertilizer to help support and boost plant growth.
Ten households, between the township’s Palmer Heights and Easton’s College Hill neighborhoods, have signed up so far, and there’s a growing waitlist to participate, Sepaniak said.
"There's just south of 80,000 people in the greater Easton area — a single person produces about 4 to 5 pounds of food waste a week. So the math on that is tremendous."Ryan Sepaniak, founder of Easton Eco-Swap
“The numbers don't lie,” he said. “You know, 30 percent of everything that ends up in the landfill is food waste.
"There's just south of 80,000 people in the greater Easton area — a single person produces about 4 to 5 lbs of food waste a week. So the math on that is tremendous.
“And, if even 1 percent of those people are interested, or take the initiative to do it on their own, that saves a tremendous amount of stuff that's otherwise a waste source.
"And makes it a valuable product that they can put into their gardens and grow their own food, or however they want to use it.”
‘Down the rabbit hole’
Describing himself as “a citizen who has some interest,” Sepaniak said he started composting about five years ago, soon after he opened his lawn care company.
“I was getting a lot of lawn waste, and I was dropping it off at the dump and kind of watching what they were doing and thinking, ‘You know, at the scale that I'm working at, I can probably compost a lot of this stuff in my own yard,’” he said.
“So by doing that, I kind of went down the rabbit hole and started learning about different ways to compost, and the benefits of it.”
Food is the most common material sent to landfills across the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, making up 24.1% of municipal solid waste.
Adding to that yard trimmings, wood and paper/paperboard, organic materials account for 51.4% of municipal solid waste that ends up in landfills.
Through his research, Sepaniak found vermicomposting, a method that uses worms to help break down kitchen scraps and other organic waste, as well as a method using black fly larvae, and decided to give it a try.
“I bought a couple pounds of worms,” he said. “The compost that I had been making in my backyard, I started feeding them that, and they proliferated really well. They're pretty easy creatures to quote-unquote farm with.
“And by the time two or three years have settled in, I had two giant bins on my basement that I was regularly filling, and thousands of worms.
"And I started thinking about different ways I can show this around to other people, because it's so easy to do and you're kind of impressed by how much waste it actually diverts from your garbage every week.”
‘Composting a lot more stuff’
The advantage to using both worms and flies is that they have different diets, he said.
“The black soldier flies will eat anything that's not cardboard — that means meat, dairy, fat, eggs, all that kind of stuff,” he said. “They'll eat it fast enough that it won't spoil and start to smell.
“And then whatever's leftover, maybe heavier like corn-coby, stalky stuff, corn silk, all that kind of stuff, you could put in with the worms, and they'll break that down over time.”
"I was really happy with the interest.”Ryan Sepaniak, founder of Easton Eco-Swap
The worms don’t actually eat the food scraps, but the bacteria that breaks down the food, he said.
“So as long as the food is being broken down, which is just making sure their environment is the right mix of carbon and nitrogen, and it's moist enough, the bacteria will start to do work really fast, and then the worms will come in and they'll actually eat all that bacteria,” he said.
“Having both things gives me a lot more leeway for composting a lot more stuff.”
Admitting he’s “not a great marketer” and doesn’t use social media often, Sepaniak said, “I was ending up with literally tons of compost and nothing to do with it.”
“I was just spreading it around my yard and using it in my own garden beds,” he said. “So I let those beds go dormant for a year, kind of cleared out my basement and kind of pushed forward at the end of last year to really see if I could do something with this for the community.
“And I was really happy with the interest.”
‘Overwhelmed with food scraps’
After launching a Facebook page about the effort in late December, Sepaniak dropped off his first round of buckets on New Year’s Day.
“I figured I'd put it out there and see if there was anyone interested to at least logistically make it worthwhile,” he said.
“It's not a huge startup investment — it's a couple buckets — but it does require a bit of labor to get everything collected and processed so that the worms can take it from there.
“I just want to make sure there was enough public interest before I went ahead. And within two or three days, I had more people than I could realistically start with until I got kind of overwhelmed with food scraps.”
For now, the pilot is limited to 10 people, at a cost of $25 per month.
Set up as a weekly swap program, each household receives a 5-gallon bucket to fill with organic scraps — fruit and vegetable leftovers, coffee grounds, egg shells, paper and more — that Sepaniak picks up and replaces with an empty bucket.
“I'll leave you a clean, sanitized bucket, and you can get right back to filling that up over the next seven days,” he said. “In the meantime, I'll take everything home.
“I take the food waste that's in the bucket, and I process it down till it's a pulp, squeeze out as much of the liquid as I can so my beds don't get too soupy, and then I just start feeding it to the black soldier flies.”
‘Reduce and produce’
If all 10 households fill their buckets, that’ll be about 50 gallons of food scraps, Sepaniak said. From that, he’ll be able to make 12 or 13 gallons of compost.
Seeing the worms and flies in action — transforming waste to a usable product — is part of the appeal.
“Not only is it cool to divert so much food waste, but it is actually just fun to watch them do their thing.”Ryan Sepaniak, founder of Easton Eco-Swap
“That's what kind of led me to want to do it,” he said. “Not only is it cool to divert so much food waste, but it is actually just fun to watch them do their thing.”
Once the compost is ready to use, he plans to deliver it back to the households who participated, for use in gardens or flower beds.
“And then, I was kind of thinking, maybe, this summer, maybe getting a monthly setup down at the public farmers market, seeing if anyone's interested in purchasing,” he said.
“If I have any leftovers right away, it won't be a huge volume, because they do take a little bit to get started up.
"But once the system is kind of running on its own, it's pretty surprising how much they reduce and produce.”
Residents interested in participating can contact Sepaniak through the Easton Eco-Swap Facebook page.
