Originally written and published by Global Alliance For Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)

​The word “cero” in spanish means “zero,” and that’s the focus of this composting cooperative in Boston: moving the city towards zero food waste, and building stronger, more equitable communities in the process. The seeds of CERO were first planted at a meeting where local community members gathered to discuss how to improve recycling rates and create good jobs for marginalized communities. At the time Boston had an abysmal recycling and waste diversion rate of under 25%, and according to a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, white households had a median wealth of $247,500, and Dominicans and U.S. blacks had a median wealth of close to zero.  CERO sought to combat that economic injustice head on by creating a diverse, bi-lingual worker co-op connected with Boston’s working class and communities of color.

As worker-owner Josefina Luna says, “We started to think[] about green economy. The media talk[ed] all the time about green economy but we didn’t see any green jobs in our community… The first idea [was to] create jobs for the community, create better social development for the minority people, for the people who didn’t have the opportunities.” When the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection enacted a ban in 2014 that prohibits over 1,700 food businesses in the state from disposing of organic material with their trash, CERO was there to provide the solution.

The beauty of CERO is that it creates local “closed loop” systems for food, so that instead of disposing of food waste in dirty landfills that people have to live next to, they ensure that food is recycled back into soil that grows nourishing food for the community. And the model is working. So far the cooperative has prevented 11,867,122 lbs of food waste from going to landfills, and saved their customers $407,570 in trash hauling expenses!

A day in the life of a CERO worker-owner starts early. At 7am, Jonny Santos pulls up to his first customer. ​Jonny is originally from the Dominican Republic and primarily speaks Spanish. Of his work with CERO, Jonny explains, “It’s been 1 year and 5 months since I’ve been with CERO and since I joined the company my life—both personally and economically— has changed. At CERO I feel important and useful."

The first stop for Santos is Mei Mei, a stylish Chinese-American restaurant that uses fresh local ingredients and is dedicated to being a good employer for the Boston community, and preventing as much food waste as possible. Mei Mei is a family business. Meaning “Little Sister,” in Chinese, it is now run by the youngest in the family, Irene Li. From the beginning, the restaurant was on a mission. “For me, I figured that if we were going to be in this tough challenging industry, it would have to be because we were trying to make a difference,” said Li. “We didn’t want to be another average restaurant. A lot of them contribute to a lot of social problems. Can we instead use restaurants as an engine for change?” 

In order to live up to those values, Mei Mei serves farm-to-table food at a reasonable cost, provides employee education and empowerment trainings, and thanks to their partnership with CERO, they are doubling-down on food waste. “When I got my first restaurant job I was pretty horrified by what I saw on a more commercial scale– recycling wasn’t happening, composting definitely wasn’t happening.” So at Mei Mei they make sure to repurpose food scraps (kale stems too tough for salad become a pesto or a perogi filling), donate what they can’t use, provide free or cheap food to employees through a wholesale program, and then whatever is left over goes into CERO’s compost bin.

Mei Mei and CERO’s partnership represents a perfect food loop– Mei Mei sources some of its produce directly from the very same local farms that use compost from its food waste. CERO makes sure that all those onion peels, carrot tops and apple cores that Mei Mei puts in the bin don’t go to waste, but turn into a rich compost to help grow the next crop of local fresh food that land on Mei Mei customers’ plates. Mei Mei’s partnership with CERO not only helps grow a local food economy, but it’s helped them keep their costs down. “Not only is that good from a financial perspective, helps us show that you can buy ingredients selectively and still have manageable costs,” says Li. Not only does it make sense financially, it just feels right. It makes Mei Mei a place where people are proud to work,” says Li. “The world makes it very hard to live in alignment with our values, so if we can offer that in any small number of ways to our team that’s providing them some kind of harmony in their lives.”

After picking up food scraps at Mei Mei it’s time to head to Green City Growers. Founded in 2008, Green City Growers is an edible landscaping and urban farming company converting unused spaces to places where food is grown, revitalizing city landscapes and inspiring self-sufficiency. They install gardens in people’s homes, at restaurants, corporate offices, and grocery stores, and other–sometimes unexpected–urban spaces, like the top of Fenway Park! The company was founded by Jessie Banhazl.

Banhazl wasn’t always an urban farming extraordinaire– before she founded Green City Growers she worked in reality TV, working behind-the-scenes of shows like “Wife Swap”, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay”, and “The Hills.” But Banhazl wanted a more meaningful career, and she realized that to have a sustainable and resilient cities, they need to, quite literally, go green. As Banhazl puts it, “[Green City Growers] creat[es] opportunities to see food growing in spaces where there wasn’t. It’s proven that it’s important for human beings to be around nature, and cities have moved away from that as a priority. We want to get that back into how cities are developed and built.” Green City Growers has a goal to create a regenerative, local food system throughout the country, and their partnership with CERO is an essential part of that system. Not only does CERO collect plant waste from over 100 Green City Growers locations, it also delivers the compost made from that waste for Green City Growers to enrich their soil with. Through its partnership with CERO, GCG has been able to compost 50,000 pounds of plant waste per year.

Green City Growers has a bit of an unusual service model. Banhazl calls it “edible landscaping.” GCG takes care of the maintenance, and their clients get to use the fruit of that labor however they like, whether for their cafeteria, restaurant, or corporate donations. Banhazl estimates that 5,000 pounds of produce a year is donated to food banks. They also provide education programs for both students and seniors, exposing city dwellers of all walks of life to the joys of growing your own food. As Banhazl states, “The intention [of Green City Growers] is to build a business model around sustainable and regenerative agriculture.” They want to change the business culture in the region, so that sustainability “is a priority for how business takes place.”

Next stop is the Daily Table, a non-for-profit grocery store aimed to provide affordable food options to underserved communities in Boston. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. wastes 30-40% of its food supply, and 31% of that food waste comes from retailers and consumers, who cumulatively waste a whopping 133 billion pounds of food per year (as of most recent data from 2010). 

This wastefulness is all the more shocking when paired with the fact that The Daily Table is out to solve the problem of food waste and food insecurity in the Boston area in one elegant solution– collect donated food from growers, manufacturers and retailers, and offer them at discounted prices to lower income communities. However, Daily Table is sometimes not able to distribute all the fresh food before it goes bad. That’s where CERO comes in. CERO collects the leftover food and composts it so that nothing goes to waste.

Waste-conscious businesses like Mei Mei, Green City Growers, and Daily Table show the promise of local, sustainable food systems rooted in social justice and equity. CERO’s role is to connect these efforts together in a loop that prevents waste while creating green jobs, healthy soil, and more vibrant communities. As the city of Boston unveils its Zero Waste Plan– to get the city to 80 percent diversion by 2035 and 90 percent diversion by 2050 from recycling and composting– organizations like CERO are the key not only to reaching these ambitious goals, but transforming Boston into a place where its workers and all its residents can thrive.

By Casey Lynch

During this unprecedented time, stay-at-home orders and social distancing have increased the demand for more healthy and self-reliant measures in our homes. These include reducing trips to the store or for takeout food (and waiting in long lines!) in favor of making home-cooked meals and growing gardens. 

We’re also spending as much time as possible out in nature, since that’s one non-tech form of entertainment we have left to enjoy. People are reconnecting with the outdoors, whether by growing a backyard garden, tending window boxes or spending time in shared green spaces like state parks or community gardens. As we use this time to re-establish our connection to the Earth, there is still a nagging question: How can we be more self-sustaining with limited open businesses while under a stay-at-home advisory? How can we nurture the plot of earth that we live on, and that sustains us?       

Creating your own compost from your food scraps is not only a good way to save money and increase self-reliance, but it also is sustainable and Earth-friendly. Composting removes food waste from the landfill waste stream, returns nutrients to the soil and helps remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere. 

While there are several residential composting programs that pick up food waste (animal by-products included) from your doorstep, you might be wary about a company coming to your house weekly or bi-weekly because of COVID-19 or you simply don’t want to pay a monthly fee. There is always the option to create your own compost pile at home, even if you are short on space.  

Raised metal compost tumblers are the best method to effortlessly compost at home (if you have space and the budget) because they also speed up the decomposition timeline. Note: I live in an urban area and have had pests chew through my plastic compost tumbler within two weeks from set up (although I did break the cardinal rule against adding meat). I have an aunt who lives in the same city and she has had a metal compost tumbler for over 10 years with no issues. **If you are not using a residential composting program that goes to an industrial composting site, I do not recommend putting animal by-products in your at-home compost, even a metal tumbler, unless you want to host pests.**

1. You can purchase a compost tumbler online or at your local garden or big-box store. There is also a handy video of how you can build your compost tumbler for free. Once you have it, place the compost tumbler in a sunny location so that it heats up during the day to speed up the decomposition process. Be sure that when you begin to add material to your compost tumbler, you’ve placed it in its permanent location. It is hard to move once it is full!
2. To begin, place a scoop of healthy soil, compost or compost accelerator/activator into your tumbler. 
3. Place 15–30% of carbon-based material (leaves, brown paper bags, yard waste) into the tumbler and 70–85% of nitrogen-based material (coffee grounds, eggshells, food waste;      exclude animal and animal by-product waste).
4. Fill until only 75% of the way full.
5. Spin compost tumbler every five to seven days to increase airflow.
6. After four to eight weeks, you should have a finished compost product ready to use in your garden.

Note: Consider the number of people in your household and how much food waste you create. You should take this into consideration when purchasing your container or making your tumbler, thinking about how many gallons the container should be and whether it should have one or two chambers. A two-chamber compost tumbler will allow you to continue adding food waste even when a pile may be close to finishing its decomposition process, so you will always have a space to recycle your food waste.  

1. Get a 20-gallon non-transparent plastic rectangular bin with a lid. These are sold at your local hardware store or a big-box store. 
   
2. Drill evenly-spaced holes with a regular drill bit in the bottom and sides of the bin, usually      about 1 hole per gallon works well, so 20 holes for a 20-gallon bin. Be careful to not put too many holes (which will expose the worms and food waste to too much air) or too few holes (which will suffocate the worms and not allow for aeration of the pile).
   
3. Find a strategic place to host your compost pile in a shady area that will not get too much water or sun. Be aware that in an apartment building placing the bin on a balcony may violate fire codes, so find a good location so you will not have to move it once it’s established.
   
4. Shred non-glossy paper (like used brown paper shopping bags, cardboard egg cartons or newspaper) as bedding for your worms. Lightly dampen this bedding and maintain its dampness.
   
5. Add a small scoop of healthy soil and a scoop of food scraps and let sit for two weeks so microbes that the worms use as food can populate their new home. Lightly water occasionally.
   
6. The best worms for your compost bin are red worms, Eisenia fetida. You can find them at your local garden store or bait shop or you can order them online. They should procreate in their new home, so no need to repopulate. These worms are best because they are epigeic, meaning they remain on the top layer of the soil and use the materials there for their food. If you use earthworms, which are anecic (deep burrowing), they will die. 
   
7. Add food to your bin! Focus mostly on adding vegetables, fruit, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells. Limit citrus, starches (bread, rice, etc.), spicy peppers, onions, oily food and sugary food. Do not add fats, meat, animal by-products, animal food, animal waste or human waste. When you add food, add a little bit of the aforementioned shredded paper and spray with water if needed. Observe how long it takes for a little food to decompose so you can be sure to not add too much water or food. You don’t want to drown or overwhelm your newly created ecosystem.
   
8. Harvest your compost! In about eight weeks you will be able to use the compost for your garden. To harvest, get another container and a plastic bag with holes cut in it. Stretch the plastic bag over the new container and dump the original container onto the plastic bag and new container. The worms should try to go through the plastic bag holes to remain in darkness, leaving you to sort through your new compost. Replace the worms in the original bin and start the process over again.
   
9. Warning: If you overfeed your bin or if you feed it foods you are not supposed to, then you will notice a proliferation of bugs and bad smells. If you develop fruit flies, place a glass of water with white vinegar and dish soap or fruit fly strips close to your bin. 
   
10. Enjoy your flourishing garden with family and friends!
    

With these tips, you can empower yourself by creating compost soil amendments, reducing food waste traveling to landfills, contributing to a healthier environment and helping you create the best garden, edible backyard or balcony that you can.

Organic materials, mostly food waste, make up at least 30% of the trash Americans throw away. When sent to landfills and incinerators, this material breaks down and emits toxic methane, one of the most deadly greenhouse gases. A far better alternative destination for this material is processing facilities.
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Composting is the best way to recycle food waste that will not be eaten by people or animals. It is a process for mixing food waste and other organic materials such as leaves and grass clippings to break down the material and create nutrient-rich compost. When applied to the land, compost replenishes depleted soil and serves as a carbon sponge, sucking up and safely sequestering carbon pollution.


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So why think about this now? Don't we have enough to worry about?
The coronavirus pandemic has awakened many to our vulnerability as human beings. It makes us think more about how to be safe and how to protect ourselves and one another. With less travel and use of fossil fuels to power commercial buildings the cleaner air is strikingly observable. As we begin to come back out and define the new normal, we have a chance to do things differently. 

Composting at home - Since we are cooking at home more we are generating more food scraps. And since we are home we have more time to learn how to compost in the backyard or get set up with one of many companies offering affordable home pickup subscriptions. Many cities and towns are establishing compostable materials drop off sites.

Composting for business - Trash is getting more and more expensive and composting is affordable. Composting is also the right thing to do. When any company starts thinking about reducing waste, the first place to start is with composting. Once groceries, cafeterias and restaurants start to separate and divert organic waste, they see a significant reduction in the amount of trash. The cost savings can easily offset the expense for professional composting services.

We are all eager to get back to business. What better time, as we thoughtfully reopen the economy, to do it in the best, most sustainable way? There are many free resources available to help any business get started composting. If your business is in eastern Mass, CERO Cooperative is the trusted local partner that can make it easy to start recycling food waste.

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.

At CERO Cooperative, trash is never really trash. The Massachusetts-based business -- which was recently awarded the Green America’s People & Planet Award -- collects food scraps from local food businesses and turns them into compost. The compost is then delivered to local farms where it can be used to grow fresh produce to be sold and cooked again. 

In Boston, local businesses pay some of the highest rates just to get their trash picked up every day and carried off to landfills. Moreover, for the area’s food businesses, about 65 percent of daily trash collection is compostable. “At the landfills, decomposing food produces the harmful gas, methane, which is then permanently in our air,” says CERO team member, Maya Gaul. “And when you look at food waste as an issue, it is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.” 
When they work with CERO, local businesses receive easy-to-use, industrial-grade compost carts that can be placed in kitchens or storerooms for easy food scrap disposal. At the end of each day, these carts are picked up and replaced with clean carts. Not only does this save businesses the higher cost of normal trash pick-ups -- or hefty fines under the state’s 2014 food waste ban -- but it makes for a greener environment. It’s a win-win-win! 

Another win-win is that CERO is a cooperative. The workers equally own and govern the business, and directly profit from their labor. “It’s important to approach sustainability from all perspectives, from the people to the business, to the planet,” Gaul says. “Not only are we helping to reduce methane emissions, but we’re able to provide local green jobs to the community.”

Reposted from www.marthastewart.com June 27, 2017 <http://www.marthastewart.com/1517631/company-food-scraps-compost-farms​ >

Due to the support of our followers, investors, and partners, CERO Cooperative has won the Green America's People and Planet Award. We thank you!

CERO Cooperative turns trash into treasure in Boston. Every week we collect tons of food scraps from local grocery stores and restaurants and, instead of that stuff turning to toxic methane gas in landfills, we make sure it’s turned into rich compost. Then we deliver it back to the community where it is re-earthed to grow more food in gardens and farms. Last season’s food “waste” comes back to our tables as this year’s local crops.

CERO is a finalist for Green America's People & Planet Award. Click here to cast your vote for our cooperative! 

Last summer we had a big party right in the bustling urban center of Boston’s Dudley Square. Folks walked and bike-toured less than a mile to see how CERO Co-op collects material and gets the composted soil over to the Haley House Thornton Street Farm. Then everybody helped harvest eggplant, peppers, and basil and brought the veggies back to Dudley Dough, where we had a giant pizza party with toppings courtesy of the farm. Of course there wasn’t any waste because all of the leftover scraps went right into CERO’s compost bins. This full food loop is the greenest part of growing a robust economy in the heart of the city.

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Imagine a cooperative urban economy where we don’t export waste and we don’t import food. Not only are we doing the right thing for the environment and the planet, we’re showing that it’s possible to create a new circular economy based on closing the food loop. We’re creating good jobs and a cooperative composting community with a business owned by the workers, right where we live.

The whole community got into this movement to grow local food and jobs by putting their money with their values to invest in the CERO start up. Friends and neighbors helpedworker-owners raise the cash to finance their cooperative social venture and now they share in the pride as they see us retrieving compostables and delivering soil in the neighborhood. Together we’re learning that we really can make a profit when we put people and the planet first.
In our urban neighborhoods most folks can’t set up to compost in their own backyards. When you vote for CERO to win the Green People and Planet Business Award we will use the prize money to set up community compost drop off sites at local farmers’ markets. When we make it easy for families to compost their household food scraps we take another step toward helping all Boston residents make the culture shift to be a super-green zero waste city.

​Making it in the restaurant industry is no easy task. According to a study by Ohio University, 80% of new restaurants fail in the first five years. So, what does it take to be in that top 20%? Many food blogs and restaurant gurus will tell you that it's a numbers game: efficiency, planning, and good accounting being paramount. They certainly wouldn't be wrong. However, Boston-based b.good is doing much more than that.

After twelve years of growth, opening their doors at 40 locations (including one in Switzerland) and garnering dozens of awards and accolades, here are some of the ways b.good is setting the new standard for successful, community-focused business.

1. Make the most of your mistakes.
Can you turn your mistakes into opportunities? How about into a farm, on an island? After making a mistake on a catering order for a large summer camp located on Long Island in Boston Harbor, b.good visited the camp to make amends in person. In talking with the camp staff, a vision was formed to use abandoned land on the island to grow food. Just a few months later, b.good is running Hannah Farm on the property and donating 75% of what they grow back to the summer camp and to communities in need. The rest goes back to b.good's restaurants and prep kitchens, where the scraps are picked up to be composted. The finished soil is then delivered back out to Hannah Farm, completing the food loop.

Wahoo! Earlier this week, CERO composted it's two millionth pound of food waste. With nearly three months still to go in 2016, we've diverted more than 150% of what we did in all of 2015. The road to this point has been full of challenges, and we are both thrilled and proud to hit this milestone. We couldn't have done it without our incredible partners like America's Food Basket, Wegmans, Dudley Dough, Daily Table, Tropical Foods, DiSilva Fruit, b.good, The Frogmore, Fairsted Kitchen, Boston Public Market and countless others. Y'all are rockstars.

According to a 2015 UW-Madison study, landfilling one ton of food waste results in the emission of 0.71 tons CO2e. This is due mostly to methane emissions that are produced when food waste is buried and forced to break down under anaerobic conditions (no oxygen). On the other hand, composting a ton of food waste results in a net reduction of 0.24 tons CO2e, due to carbon sequestration. This means that for every pound of food waste composted, we are effectively putting carbon back into the ground. It sounds too good to be true, but nature has been doing it for millions of years!

​When food breaks down under natural conditions, the nutrients are returned to the soil to be used by future plants. This creates a sustainable cycling of nutrients, which is what CERO strives to do. This is in direct opposition to landfilling, which leaves these nutrients stranded and sealed underground, never to be returned to the natural environment or cycled into new plants.