Composting Fox | Rian Bedard | TEDxWindham

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Food waste shouldn’t have to go in plastic bags and be thrown into landfills.
The future of our planet is dependent on us changing small habits.
Composting our food is a small habit that can change the world.

My name is Rian.

In my community I'm better known
as the compost man.

This is compost.

It was once sloppy Joes
and soggy French toast sticks.

This is my 3rd grade Principal
in the background.

And I spent a little bit too much time
in his office as a kid growing up.

These kids are for the first time seeing
the fruits of their labor.

They've spent a whole year
teaching their fellow students

how to separate their food waste.

This is their a-ha! moment.

This is where they realize
everything comes full circle.

My a-ha! moment came
when I moved to San Francisco in 2007

and studied permaculture.

Permaculture, at the root of the word
is permanent agriculture.

It's a designed system
that creates no waste

because it views it as a resource.

In that course, the thing
that stuck with me most

is that we had to keep a journal.

In that journal, we were supposed to
record what we did on a daily basis.

Did we drive to work?

What food did we eat?

What kind of toilet paper did we buy?

It made you hyper-focused
on what you did.

What it did was it gave you
the ability to see

how much of an impact,
whether positive or negative,

you were having
on the environment on a daily basis.

And then I was changed.

Like everyone who took the course
you now had these permi-lenses.

You are now looking at the world
in a different way.

I immediately started to make
small changes in my life.

I sold my car, started commuting
14 miles a day by bike,

I started composting,
I started my first garden.

They were both miserable failures
at my first attempts.

My compost was more like soup.

I've come a long way.

But what that did was it inspired us

to make these small changes
on a daily basis

and realize that this
would definitely add up over time.

On top of this, this was
a community in San Francisco

that embraced this type of mindset.

In San Francisco there is this little
organic hot dog joint called "Underdog"

out in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco.

I'll never forget a day I went there
and watched a child;

a little girl teach her parents
to sort out their waste.

There was a station with three bins.

I had never seen this three-bin concept
coming from New England.

There was a compost, recycling,
and landfill option.

What was amazing about this establishment
is that the owners, Max and Reeza

also only gave their customers
compostable ware.

And at that point I had no clue
what that meant.

All their utensils:
their forks, knives, spoons

were all made from corn and potato starch,

and everything they gave their customers
was either reusable or compostable.

So they really generated no waste and it
was an amazing first thing for me to see.

What was also amazing
was in San Francisco

they had the option for you to push
your organics or your food waste curbside.

They took meat, dairy, bones,
and all your yard trimmings.

I had never seen that before,
and it really just blew my mind.

And I also at the end of this said,

"Why the hell
aren't we doing this everywhere?"

This is ridiculous.
We should be doing this everywhere.

This is so great!

When I cam home,
I had these permi-lenses on.

The first job I got
was at a little local cafe.

And when you have these lenses on,
you never see the world the same.

I started to look at
little things at this cafe

we could do to lessen our impact.

One thing we noticed

when we started studying

the way our customers
interacted in the space

was that there's a counter
that the customers,

after they got their sandwich
would walk to.

And you just watch people,
almost like a robot

just throwing forks, knives, spoons,
salt and pepper into a bag

then walking out the door.

And you just sit back and say,

"Man, I would really love to see
that person eat a sandwich with a spoon.

That would be something else.

I have no idea why they just grabbed
all those things."

And what you start to realize
is that people have these habits

where they just automatically do things.

So we started to change that by first,
taking away the plastic utensils;

putting them behind the counter.

And if they wanted them
they could have them.

We weren't saying,
"You can't ever use this again."

Also training the staff to say,
"Is that for here or to go?"

It's a really simple question,
but it's powerful.

It's either a mug or a paper cup
with a lid on it.

Do you really need a bag
to carry your sandwich,

which is already wrapped
across the street?

No, you really don't.

So you get people thinking about that,

and what we started to do
is really lessen the impact

of the source of the waste, which was us.

And also retrain the people
coming in, our customers,

to then also think about
what they were creating.

With that, we started saving
hundreds of dollars every month.

On top of that,
we were purchasing in bulk,

so we had less little packages of things.

We stopped dumping out gallons of milk,
like the old manager was doing

because the [part] was set properly.

And I was able to then,

- because I'm geeking out
hard on this permaculture thing -

go to my owner and say,

"Hey, we're saving money,
can we try to attempt this compost thing?"

And at this time, nobody
in Portsmouth was composting.

As soon as we started that,
we started diverting

90% or greater of our total waste
from the landfill.

That was between
composting and recycling.

We were now taking our garbage out
once every two weeks. That was it.

So with this process, I also realized

there was a greater community need

for this service of compost hauling.

So we started Mr. Fox composting.

We started out with a pick-up truck
and a dump trailer.

And it was a labor of love,
let me tell you.

Two guys lugging 30 pound bags
of compost in the back of a trailer.

We didn't have the Yankee ingenuity
to have a tipper to tip the cart.

We were doing it all by hand.

And it quickly grew.

Now, we've got over
100 commercial businesses.

We've got 15 schools, we've got nursing
homes, hospitals, restaurants, and cafes.

We have several hundred residents
we work with.

We also have municipal projects,

where we have residents bring
their food scraps to the municipalities.

At the transfer station, we pick that up,

and we charge less of a tipping fee.

These municipalities are now saving money.

The biggest part about this, and one
of the reasons why I started this company

was that ripple effect though.

Everyone at these businesses
goes to work on a daily basis,

and they start this process.

And they're going to go home
after work, or after school, and say,

why aren't we doing this at home?

Why aren't we doing this at school?

So you have that ripple effect
that the students

and these people in these restaurants
that have been trained

will never look at the world the same.

They'll always question,
"Why aren't we composting?

This makes sense."

So this is how we do it.

I'm glad the winter is over,

but that left, top picture
is the vehicle we use.

It gets double the MPGs
that most garbage trucks do.

And it's a clean diesel,
so you'll never see black emissions

coming out of that exhaust pipe
on this truck.

It's taken to our facility.

We combine it with a carbon source,
mainly leaf waste.

And we put it through a mixer
that was made by a local company.

And then the magic happens.

Most people will ask us how compost works.

They say, "Do you add
an outside heating element?

Is it the sun?"

No, it's microbes.

And I get excited about this.

When I do talks, we say, "This is
Mrs. and Mr. PacMan doing work.

They're going to town."

I went to compost school.

There is such a thing.

(Laughter)

The thing that stuck with me most
was, as a composter,

you're creating an environment
conducive for microbes to thrive.

After I heard that, I was like
"OK, I get it now. This makes sense."

You're an alchemist.

You need the right amount of carbon;
which is the dead brown stuff.

The right amount of nitrogen,
which is the live green stuff.

The right amount of oxygen,

and the right amount of moisture,
like a wrung out sponge.

When you do that you create an environment
for these microbes to thrive.

When those microbes thrive,
they create so much heat in that pile

that they are breaking down
compostable ware which is made from corn.

They're able to kill off
pathogens and bad bacteria

found in meats, dairy,
and bones, and cooked things;

the things you can't compost
in your backyard.

You're not really supposed to,

unless you want
a neighborhood pest-fest going on.

This is what a load
looks like from 14 grocery stores.

This is 28,000 pounds.

These loads are different from the loads
we collect from the restaurants.

These loads are beautiful.

And this is me geeking out on compost,
but this could be eaten.

You could grab a melon out of this pile,
cut it open and eat it.

There's a major issue in this country
with waste, at the source.

We're creating too much of it.

40% of all food is wasted.

That's ridiculous!

This is beautiful stuff,
coming from grocery stores

that maybe didn't look so good.

or because of legal reasons
isn't getting into peoples' mouths.

We need to change that.

The alternative for food waste

if it's not ending up
in a compost facility, is the landfill.

60% of waste goes to the landfill

and accounts for 20%
of overall methane emissions.

Methane is 22 times more potent than CO2.

I show this picture to kids,

and I ask them to give me one word
that describes how it makes them feel.

And I hear "sick."

Disgusted.

Sad.

Wasteful.

And powerless.

We need to change that.

This is my high school principal
beaming with pride.

This is part of my journey.

But this is their compost.

This is one of many
of their a-ha! moments.

I can give them their permi-lenses,

and I can help them plant
the seeds of change,

and together, we can help
solve this problem.

Thank you.

(Applause)