The city of Boise’s program doling out compost for free to residents who want it has exceeded expectations in its first year.
Every day, a facility south of Boise gets around 112 tons of materials. That’s 112 tons of yard clippings and food scraps each day that arrives at Twenty Mile South Farm to be turned into compost.
That’s more than the complex can handle. The Idaho Press reports the facility is only designed to take around 95 tons of materials per day.
Catherine Chertudi says the compost coming out of the city-owned farm is top-notch. She’s the city’s solid waste environmental program manager. The cast off materials are turned and matured over several months and transformed into the rich, dark compost. Since the start of the program, almost 28,000 tons of material has been composted.
After a year, around 1,300 cubic yards of compost was given away to residents of Boise. About 1,500 cubic yards of the soil-booster was sold to private businesses, and, over 5,000 cubic yards of the stuff has been used in city parks and other civic properties.
The program is paid for through an average monthly fee of $18.64 per household which also covers the cost of collecting trash and recyclables. Boise city spokesperson Colin Hickman says the program is making enough money to completely pay for itself. Currently, the compost is only available to be collected by residents participating in the program at the Idaho Botanical Gardens. A second compost collection site is expected to open this fall at the West Boise Water Renewal facility.
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