Composting in the Time of COVID-19

5/18/2020

CERO Cooperative

Composting is an essential service! We are on the front lines collecting organic waste throughout the city of Boston and its surrounding areas. With the spread of this new COVID19 virus, different branches of society have collectively been working together from afar to support different members of the community. Through the lens of solidarity, we are inspired to see this happening in Boston. While this pandemic has caused us to retreat into our homes in order to help stop the spread, in a way, it has brought to light the importance of community and connection. The virtual community we are creating is full of information, encouragement, resources and we wanted to do our part to share the compost-friendly cleaning practices we are doing during this time with all of you.

One way everyone can take action during this time is through extra hygiene and cleanliness in the workplace. Sanitation and cleanliness has always been at the center of CERO’s operation when collecting organic material. Now more than ever, it is crucial to pay extra attention to the details. Our truck drivers who pick up organic waste around the Boston area are taking all necessary precautions to keep themselves safe while doing a thorough sanitation of each tote that is picked up. Since our beginnings, we have always made sure cleanliness was a top priority for our composting clients so, after each pickup, the totes would be returned sparkling clean. Now, we are adding even more sanitation measures to ensure that all surfaces are free of unwanted bacteria. As seen in the recent picture taken below, masks, and protective gear are being worn and an anti-virus cleaner is being used to spray each tote after food is brought to local farms for composting.

CERO Worker Sanitizing CERO Totes

Along with essential workers taking extra precautions to keep sanitation a top priority, we know people at home are also looking to find the best practices to keep themselves safe. While there are a lot of resources available online for information, here is a list of five home cleaning practices, along with products that can be used to disinfect different areas in the home that are also safe for composting. We believe knowledge combined with action is the true ingredient for transformative change, especially in a time like this.

5 HOME CLEANING PRACTICES THAT ARE SAFE FOR HOME COMPOST:

Regularly clean high touch surfaces around your home such as tabletops, doorknobs, light switches, handrails, toilets, etc.
If a surface is dirty, first clean with soap and water and use any of the following disinfectants to further clean area:
1. Biodegradable soap and water
2. Hydrogen Peroxide
3. Isopropyl Alcohol (allow to sit on the area for 30 seconds)
Remember to clean and disinfect your car! Areas such as the steering wheel, seatbelts, and car handles are high-risk areas so make sure to wipe your car down when you can.
Wash your hands regularly for 30 seconds or more and don’t touch your face or mouth.
Remember to disinfect the mailbox area!

For more information, we have listed some helpful articles below:
6 All-Natural Cleaning Products You Can Make At Home
Cleaning and Hygiene Tips to Keep COVID out of Home

SELF CARE TIPS TO KEEP SPIRITS LIFTED DURING THIS HEAVY TIME:

Staying virtually connected to family, friends, colleagues, and other support systems can bring fulfillment and a feeling of unity.
Avoid burnout and overwork at home. Take periodic breaks from the screen to stretch, have some coffee or tea, or anything else that serves as a refreshing treat!
Meditation, relaxation, and conscious breath-work serve as anecdotes to high levels of stress, fear and anxiety.
Explore the myriad of online content being created, who knows, you might discover something new!

For more information on self-care activities: we have listed some helpful articles below:
Self-care for Social Workers
Take Care of Yourself During Pandemic
Protect Mental Health During COVID 19

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New Life for Food Waste: CERO co-op turns scraps into productive compost

2/19/2020

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Originally written and published In EdibleBoston by Michael Floreak.

Photos by Michael Piazza

At 5:30 on a Friday morning the Southeast Expressway is still dark, quiet and mostly empty of cars. A half mile away, the warehouse-filled triangle where South Boston, Dorchester and Roxbury converge is already buzzing, rumbling and beeping. Tractor trailers are busy delivering produce, seafood, meat and other provisions that will be distributed to Boston-area grocery stores, restaurants and institutions after the sun comes up.

Tucked into an annex next to a Southampton Street warehouse, workers at food composting cooperative CERO (for Cooperative Energy, Recycling and Organics) are firing up their own small fleet of trucks. They too will soon set out across the region, visiting many of those same businesses. CERO will be there to pick up the food waste that’s left behind—about 8 million pounds a year—and haul it to area farms where it will be turned into compost rather than rot in landfills.

“Every day we are here doing it, even Saturday,” says Josefina Luna, a worker-owner of the Dorchester-based company. Like everyone at CERO, Luna wears many hats. She is co-founder, the chief financial officer and chief operating officer. At 5:30 in the morning, she is also making sure everything is operating as it should be as drivers begin taking to their trucks.

“When we started, we had nothing. Today we have four vehicles and 13 employees who make a decent salary,” she says.

Working hard and creating good jobs for a diverse group of employees has been at the heart of CERO’s business from the beginning. As Luna tells it, the idea for CERO began years ago. The effects of the 2008 recession still lingered and unemployment in the Dorchester area was a problem. As a group of community leaders gathered to consider solutions, a need for jobs met the realization that food waste was not yet a big part of the growing, but still under-realized, green economy.

“So, they thought, ‘Well, why can’t we create jobs for ourselves and also help our community by being a champion for recycling?’” says CERO Sales Director Maya Gaul. A feasibility study showed there was indeed a market for commercial composting. That market received a big boost with implementation of a statewide food waste ban that required large producers of food waste to find alternatives to sending it to the landfill.

As the food waste ban took effect in 2014, CERO signed up its first customer: American Food Basket, a Latin American supermarket with multiple locations in and around Boston. They also put their first (and, for a time, only) truck on the road. Luna shows that truck as she gives a pre-dawn tour. It’s been joined by others: a small truck that handles food waste pickups in narrow New England streets and pair of larger trucks that can haul more than 14 tons at a time. The large trucks can handle up to 30 barrels of food waste collected by clients in green CERO-branded bins.
The composting company’s first customers were most interested in creating jobs and spurring economic development, Luna says. With education offered through CERO, they also strongly embraced the environmental benefits.
“But first was community,” Luna says.

Early supporters of CERO included nonprofits such as the food retailer Daily Table and the food business incubator Commonwealth Kitchen, both located in Dorchester. Today, CERO serves a diverse set of clients throughout the Boston metro area, from Wellesley to Westwood to Lawrence.
Sales director Gaul says that commercial grocery stores like American Food Basket and Wegmans were early to adopt composting for handling food waste as part of the 2014 ban, followed by microbreweries and large restaurants. Real estate companies that operate buildings where food service is part of the offering are a growing client group for CERO, as are large institutions like MIT and Northeastern University.

CERO’s single largest client is DiSilva Fruit, the biggest wholesaler and re-packager of citrus in New England. DiSilva sends upwards of eight tons of waste a week to CERO.

“They’re repackaging all of these potatoes and onions and lemons and limes and oranges, and sometimes some of them don’t come in well,” Gaul says.

Keeping things clean is one of the most important factors for many CERO clients, according to Gaul. Unlike dumpsters that mix food and other waste, CERO’s bins are regularly cleaned, which clients see as added value. Dozens of collection bins at CERO’s warehouse attest to a commitment to cleanliness. Bins are returned periodically to the warehouse for a thorough cleaning. As Luna gives her tour, she notes that each truck includes water hoses that allow CERO drivers to clean bins on-site.

Client pickups can happen as often as three times a week, or just once, as at Home.stead Café, a client located in the same Fields Corner building as CERO’s administrative office. Home.stead produces two barrels of compost— mostly coffee grounds and waste from food prep—and just one barrel of trash each week.

Their waste falls below the threshold required under the food waste ban, but Home.stead co-owner Vivian Girard says reducing waste and composting are important to him and his wife/business partner, Elisa, who live also in the historic Dorchester neighborhood.

“We’re small, but it’s a meaningful amount,” Girard says.

“Spaces like this are really important,” Gaul notes. “Your staff is directly participating in this culture.”

“We’re trying to think a little beyond the cash register,” Girard adds.

Gaul hopes that a wider swath of businesses will come to share this commitment to the environment and thinking about the future.

“I want to popularize sustainability. I want to popularize recycling,” she says.

There are signs that word is getting out. Gaul notes that when she joined CERO in 2015, only a few potential clients contacted her via the website. Most of her work was reaching out to companies to make them aware of the advantages of using a composting service. (The advantages are both environmental and financial. Composting services generally cost less than sending waste to the landfill.) Now, as many as 10 businesses a week contact CERO to find out about composting.

“I think it has to do with the attention that climate change is getting right now as a topic. People are realizing how much our world is changing,” Gaul says.

A desire to help make change happen and be part of something bigger is what brought Gaul to CERO from her previous job at WGBH. Gaul grew up in Egleston Square and wanted to return to Boston after graduating from college. She was working on public relations for a documentary on the Civil Rights movement when she realized that she wanted to be part of making change, not writing about it.

“I thought, ‘Maybe there’s something I can be doing that’s more pressing to frontline issues,’” Gaul remembers. In 2015, a business acquaintance introduced Gaul to Luna. CERO was looking for someone to head up sales and join the co-op as an owner-worker. Gaul decided it was just the sort of frontline opportunity she was looking for. Soon she found herself a part of a small organization with a big mandate. Under CERO’s unique co-op structure, she learned what it meant to be both an owner and worker.

“When I first started, we were so strapped that I was on the trucks. I was cleaning the totes. I was doing all that, and just the act of it was very humbling. But also, I realized what goes into the operations here, how much care we put into it, how much thought goes into that. I think a lot of our clients, they put that same level of detail and care into their own operations,” Gaul says.

Gaul and Luna are among the three current employee-owners of the firm. There are also two emeritus owners and three people on track to become owners. Employees from throughout the company are able to move into an owner track in the small, tight-knit organization.

“We’re not just a business and we’re not a family, but we’re a cooperative business. And that’s very interesting, but also very challenging,” Gaul says. She notes that taking on the challenges of running a business doesn’t appeal to everyone. Some workers decide to move on rather than pursuing ownership. According to Gaul, everyone at the company—owner or not—is paid the same modest salary. She has heard back from some colleagues who have moved on to other jobs saying, “Oh, I didn’t understand the culture of dignity here.”

With its recycling business established and growing, CERO has set its sights next on something bigger: a cooperatively owned facility that generates green energy in Boston. CERO recently submitted a proposal to the Commonwealth to develop the former Boston State Hospital parcel as an anaerobic digester that will convert food into renewable energy in the form of natural gas and electricity. CERO’s proposal is one of several now being considered by the state.

Gaul sees a highly visible green project like this as one more step on the way to meaningful changes in the community, and beyond. “To me it’s like an echo of the soul. You see these things and you say, ‘This is what I should be doing.’”

This story appeared in the Winter 2020 issue.

Michael Floreak is a food writer who lives and often eats in Cambridge. His interviews with authors, chefs, writers, food policy experts and other characters from the food world have appeared regularly in the Boston Globe and To Market magazine. Michael holds a Master of Arts in Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and recently completed a Master’s of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy from Boston University. In addition to writing about food, Michael works as a brand strategist and writer. You reach him by email at Michael.Floreak@gmail.com or follow on Twitter: @floreak.

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cero composting at Spaulding hospital

11/6/2019

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CERO started with a mission to provide a high-quality composting service to the local community and to be part of an equitable employee-owned business that cares deeply for its clients. We are proud to say we now have over 70 customers that are dedicated to helping the planet and their business by being sustainable with their food waste. CERO was founded on a simple mission that adhered to this triple bottom line: people, planet and profit. We are lucky to have influential companies partnering with us and joining us in the movement for a sustainable world and economy.

One of the companies that CERO is lucky to work with is Spaulding Hospital in Cambridge. Spaulding Hospital offers the “unique ability to meet the complex needs of you, our patients, through medical and rehabilitative care”. With their rehabilitation program, they are committed to giving people hope and care throughout their individual journey. As can be imagined, hospitals tend to generate a large portion of food waste which has traditionally been mixed in with the rest of the trash for incineration. Spaulding Hospital has been composting for a few years now and decided to work with CERO to not only meet their composting needs but also continue giving the community at large hope through environmental stewardship. We wanted to see how their experience with CERO has been, so we decided to interview Thomas Cappuccio, Senior Director of Support Services at Spaulding Hospital in Cambridge.

How did you hear about CERO?

CERO was not a partner’s approved vendor at first but we were contacted by Maya Gaul, the sales team leader at CERO. One on one marketing from Maya made the deal happen.
Also, freshly cleaned bins were a plus. Maya met with us in January 2017 and the first bins went out shortly after to implement the program.

How were you disposing of food waste before you started working with CERO?

Spaulding Cambridge Hospital had been composting for a while. They had already composted for 5 years but had a different system set up. We worked with Save That Stuff for a few years, but more in the summertime. On a number of occasions with composting at STS, sanitation issues became an issue (pests, odor, food being left out, etc.). We think CERO is more sanitary and hands-on [for prevention] which provides a better service. They are great when it comes to cleaning, washing bins and other services they commit to. Maya has been great training the staff to compost. I think it’s a good partnership.

*CERO provides free, multilingual employee training for your whole team, so things run smoothly from Day 1.*

How much food waste does the hospital generate per week? Where does it come from - cafeteria, shops, etc?

Food waste is cafeteria food waste such as scraps, leftovers, etc. There is a 50/50 percentage between patient food and cafeteria food. On average, it is 3,000 pounds a month. The patient’s food needs to fit into their particular diet but at the end of the day it all goes to the same place: compost at local farms.

Has working with CERO positively impacted your budget? Why?

We think CERO is a little less expensive; budget-neutral. It is cheaper than not composting at all, since then food waste would be going out with the regular trash, which is more expensive to dispose of.

Have you made other efforts to increase sustainable practices in your business?

Spaulding hospital does single-stream recycling throughout the hospital. Cans, bottles, cardboard, paper, grease, batteries, ink cartridges are all included. We are proud to have eliminated styrofoam from the cafeteria for the past year now. Also, we have a partnership with MassRIDES to promote more biking and commuting options.

What areas have you found it difficult to be environmentally sustainable?

It’s an older building, so systems aren’t as efficient but sustainable appliances have been worked on such as lighting and heating/cooling modifications.

What do you like most about working with CERO? What do you wish could be different?

The service is pretty standard and I’m happy with it.I haven’t had an issue at all. There is never any surprises that comes across my desk or that my employees bring up to me. In that way, it’s great. It’s pretty seamless. Maya’s been great to work with. I haven’t had any kind of issue with CERO not showing up.

One initial issue was the Spaulding staff was overfilling the totes too much, and Maya asked if they could fill it up ¾ of the way. Quick communication helped to solve that problem and it never happened again.

Has working with CERO caused any changes at the hospital that you wouldn't have expected?

Not at all, but not in a bad way. Again, it’s pretty seamless.

Introduction and editing by: Karen Urdaneta
Interview by: Olivia Hart

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