MIAMI – Two recent reports from the Environmental Protection Agency revealed a startling statistic: more than one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten, and most of it ends up in landfills where it produces harmful greenhouse gases.
Two South Florida teens are working hard to reverse the trend, joining forces with a community-based initiative to educate and engage residents and business owners to switch to a more eco-conscious method to manage their food waste.
In fact, at meal times, brother and sister Tomas and Chloe Jimenez do more than just help wash dishes, they’re actually saving the planet.
“Composting is very great for the environment,” Chloe Jimenez, a sophomore at Ransom Everglades School in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood. “Once you get into the habit, it’s so easy.”
The siblings are avid composters, recycling food scraps that when mixed with other organic matter transform into a natural fertilizer.
“It’s just basically a waiting game, where your food just gets broken down into nutrient rich soil,” said Chloe Jimenez.
The alternative is that all that food waste would go straight to landfills where the majority of our food scraps wind up.
To put it in perspective, thrown away food scraps that typically go into a landfill represent between 8% and 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
Francisco Torres runs Compost for Life, a Miami-based community initiative that has a sole mission to get more people to compost to help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases warming our planet.
“If you were to take all the food waste that we generate in our planet, and you make it one country, that country will be a third country with the highest (greenhouse gas) emissions after US and China,” said Torres. “I think composting is one of the best things that we can do for our environment. It’s very simple, and it’s very powerful.”
Food scraps thrown into landfills pile up with other garbage. Little to no oxygen gets through, generating methane.
“Which is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide,” said Torres. “And it’s one of the worst gases that creates climate change.”
Around 40% of all food waste is compostable.
Combining those food scraps with other organics, like grass clippings and leaves, then routinely mixing and aerating the pile for 120 days, allows oxygen to flow freely through it, producing little to no methane.
“It’s a natural process, we’re literally providing the right ingredients for microorganisms, good microorganisms to get activated,” said Torres.
The result is nutrient rich soil, without the need to add chemicals or fertilizers to crops and gardens, just like at an urban community farm in the heart of Overtown.
“When you use compost, you’re reducing the need for pesticides and herbicides,” said Torres. “You’re basically applying this rich material to your landscape, there is no need for introduction of chemicals.”
Compost for Life has been growing its mission since Torres began it in 2020. It takes the dirty work and does it for you; giving residents and businesses a container to dispose of acceptable food scraps, collecting them, and then composting them at different cooperative farms throughout Miami-Dade and Broward.
“So here, we’re just honoring the process of nature, the gift from nature. And we need to understand that that’s the way that we are supposed to live, in balance with our environment " said Torres.
Torres also regularly goes out into the community engaging others to join the movement. It was two years ago when he presented at Ransom Everglades School that he inspired a then-11 year old Tomas Jimenez.
“Seeing his presentation with all the different components that go into it was just really surprising to me,” said Tomas Jimenez. “I wanted to learn more.”
Composting became his sixth grade science project.
“I think I got like a 97,” Tomas Jimenez said.
It was more than just an A, it became a new way of life for him, and one that his older sister also adopted.
“I didn’t think it would snowball like this for sure,” said Chloe Jimenez.
A fuse was lit. The siblings became activated, exporting the composting mission from their dinner table to those of family, friends and classmates.
“And then from there it just exploded,” said Chloe Jimenez.
In two short years, the siblings have not only helped to grow composting on the Ransom campus, but have also successfully recruited other businesses to compost their food waste: St. Stephens Episcopal Day School, Larkin Hospital and even South Miami Hospital.
“I didn’t expect it to happen because it was such a big company,” Tomas Jimenez said.
He and his sister have no intention of stopping anytime soon. They know their future depends on it.
“I think it’s important to show that even the little things can make a difference,” said Chloe Jimenez. “And if we don’t attack this climate problem as a community, we’re never going to get anywhere.”
Composting is in fact so easy, some people do it in their own backyards, using the nutrient rich soil it produces to enhance their own lawns and gardens.
Some South Florida cities, like Miami Beach, also have locations where you can drop off acceptable food scraps you collect and will do the composting for you.
The point is that this is an easy, cost effective practice for all of us to mitigate methane gas emissions and reduce waste that is piling up in our landfills at a time when many South Florida communities are dealing with a waste management crisis.
LINKS ON COMPOSTING