CERO Cooperative, Inc. - Blog #Home Grown

CERO COOPERATIVE CAPABILITIES STATEMENT 2020

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 10:50:16 -0500

CERO COOPERATIVE FEATURED IN GAIA'S INTERNATIONAL ZERO WASTE CASE STUDIES

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 10:33:00 -0500

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.

HOW-TO: COMPOSTING AT HOME IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 11:22:31 -0500

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.**

6 STEPS TO COMPOSTING IN A RAISED COMPOST TUMBLER

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!
To begin, place a scoop of healthy soil, compost or compost accelerator/activator into your tumbler.
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).
Fill until only 75% of the way full.
Spin compost tumbler every five to seven days to increase airflow.
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.

SHORT ON SPACE? TRY VERMICOMPOSTING: COMPOSTING IN A BUCKET WITH WORMS.

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.
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)
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This story appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of Edible Boston.

CERO COMPOSTING AT MEI MEI RESTAURANT

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 10:55:23 -0500

ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP THROUGH COMPOSTING

CERO has the privilege of working with many great businesses in the Boston area; one of those businesses being Mei Mei. Mei Mei is both a hip restaurant and food truck catering business serving Chinese- American cuisine made with locally and sustainably sourced produce. Mei Mei, which means little sister in Chinese, is inspired by the business’ sibling story: a big brother and two little sisters decided to start a business together that allowed them to share their love of food with the world! I had the honor of meeting and interviewing one of the sisters, Irene Li, to learn about Mei Mei’s composting experience with CERO.

When entering the restaurant on Park Drive, guests are greeted by the contemporary design, kind staff, and relaxed aura. This is definitely a place to enjoy lunch with some friends— the morning sunlight was shining through the windows and reflected beautifully on the yellow seats, high ceilings, wooden floors and tables, exposed brick wall, fun chalkboard drawings and cute succulent plants. All the small details really contributed to the space’s bright atmosphere.

Already an impressive environment, Irene, one of the owners, is delightful to meet. She is energetic and enthusiastic about Mei Mei’s composting experience. She truly had very thoughtful things to say about CERO’s service; here is what she had to share!

How much food waste do you estimate that your business produces each month?

We have one plastic tote that gets picked up once per week, it is 60 gallons, so 200-300 gallons each month!

What made you consider using a composting program?

Well, we definitely knew we wanted to compost. I have some background with living on a farm, and know that composting is really important for maintaining a healthy ecosystem. We wanted to make sure our food scraps were going towards a good cause. We started using Save that Stuff, but we weren't too fond of using their service. They are a little more corporate, and it seemed that a smaller local business would be more within our values. I met with Jon to see how we could make the pricing work for us, and they were willing to reduce the pick-up pricing in order to help us make the switch.

What were any hurdles that you faced while instituting a composting program and how did you overcome them?

We have composted since the beginning, so it wasn’t really an issue off implementing. I guess one hurdle would be affording and finding compostable products like utensils. When people get take out, they typically bring it home and the products end up in the trash. However, we think that it is the right thing to do no matter what. Biodegradable plastic is technically compostable and biodegradable, but it is not beneficial to the soil, so we switched from compostable cups to recyclable cups, because the biodegradable plastic cups were not helpful to the farmers that CERO works with.

What were you excited or surprised to learn was compostable?

I guess I already knew a lot about composting as a farm nerd, but hair and any kind of paper kind of struck me as interesting. However, we don’t compost all of the paper as the farmers CERO works with already have enough carbon based products.

How did you hear about CERO? What do you like about the CERO service?

I first heard about CERO when they were in the start up phase, we met at a business pitch event, so we met about five or six years ago. Someone at a local cafe also mentioned how much they enjoyed working with CERO. I really like the level of customer service and I think that has a lot to do with their being a cooperative. Also, they use a plastic biodegradable bag in their totes, and I think that its great that they keep the totes clean, as if they weren't kept clean they could get really gross!

What does CERO’s cooperative business format mean to you as a customer of CERO’s services?

To me, it means that I know that their staff care about the success and the quality of their work in a way that employees of other companies don’t. I think the format of the workers being able to profit and be a part of the local economy is really great. Our company has an open-book financial model, essentially we show all of our financial information to our staff and we try to include our staff in our decision making, so in this way our business is very similar to a cooperative and reflects a lot of the same values as CERO.

INTERVIEWER: AURORA GOODLAND

EDITED BY: SERGIO SANCHEZ AND KAREN URDANETA

BIOPLASTICS: NOT AS GREEN AS THEY MIGHT SEEM

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:40:28 -0500

A PREVIOUSLY EXCITING DEVELOPMENT THAT FALLS SHORT IN COMPOST PERFORMANCE & PRACTICAL USE

Bioplastics were an exciting alternative to traditional plastics when first introduced to the sustainability and waste diversion market. Because they are produced with minimal fossil fuels and tout full compostability; they were the eco-friendly answer to styrofoam and non-renewable single-use tableware! Bioplastics were exciting.

Unfortunately, bioplastics were first a disappointment to business owners when they began melting upon contact with hot foods and beverages. The second disappointment came when commercial composters and industrial composting facilities found that many bioplastics didn’t biodegrade as advertised. Even products marked “fully compostable in industrial facilities” took years to break down in 200℉ + industrial compost windrows. They were also deemed incompatible with many anaerobic digestion facilities. So now we have plenty of people asking, “What do I do with this ‘green cup’? Is it really better for the environment? And should I even really be composting it?”

Bioplastics market well, but as we’ve seen, they often do not compost well. The truth is: a cup made out of highly processed corn and biopolymers is not invariably compostable. How the cup, lid or box is produced, in addition to what it’s made out of, determines how well it will break down in a composting environment. We either need higher tech bioplastics that can withstand normal consumer use while also biodegrading at a rate more comparable to raw food waste, or more likely in the short term, we need to be using different products altogether.

You might think “What’s the matter with a little bioplastic mixed in with compost? So what if it takes a longer time to break down. It eventually will, right?” To shed some light on this, let’s look at the composting lifecycle. CERO Cooperative delivers food waste to local compost farms where it is carefully managed, turned, and composted in open-air windrows. Once finished, the compost is used by local farmers and landscaping companies to grow next year’s food and gardens. The point of composting is to harness the carbon, nitrogen, and other valuable nutrients stored in our food waste, and recycle it into new vegetation rather than have it rot in landfills and generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Bioplastics don’t contribute to this goal, as they don’t have any significant nutritional value. Composting them simply dilutes the nutrients from the true food waste, or worse, leads to an ever growing heap of stubborn bioplastics that will not break down and can’t be returned to the earth as promised.

So what’s the solution? Ideally, it is to use reusable, washable cutlery and dishware whenever possible. When this isn’t possible and single-use items must be enlisted, those ‘green’ bioplastics might seem cool, but there are products out there that stand up better to consumer use, and also compost more reliably!

One such product is bagasse. Made from the fibrous material that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract their juice, it holds up well to higher heats, while breaking down in as little as 3 months at industrial composting facilities. There are many food service products made from bagasse, such as these to-go clamshells.

We support every effort to reduce the volume of material sent to landfills, but bioplastics in their current form are not the answer to this dilemma. It breaks our zero-waste hearts to see folks buy these products with the best of intentions, only to see their efforts and investment foiled by inferior product performance.

However, there is hope! CERO has worked with schools and restaurants (shout out to The Shady Hill School and Mei Mei, blog post coming later) to successfully make the transition to more affordable, reliable, and truly compostable bagasse and paper products. Better yet, some places have even increased usage of reusable cutlery and dishware (shout out to Equal Exchange Café!).

If food waste loads contain concentrated amounts of bioplastics, much of it will inevitably be screened out when these products fail to break down in a timely fashion. This does nobody any good: not the consumer, the buyer, nor the composter. Instead, let’s push to prioritize reusables whenever possible! And when it isn’t possible, using products made of reliably compostable paper and bagasse are a much better investment if you really care about going green!

CERO | PEOPLE, PLANET, AND COMMUNITY PROFIT

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 08:10:39 -0500

Welcome to the CERO Cooperative blog! Every day, we choose to celebrate the earth and its people through action and education to support our environment, and the environment of tomorrow. CERO is a cooperative composter, and one thing that makes us special is that we incorporate environmental education into our services by offering free composting trainings to our partner businesses. As CERO continues to grow, we would like our readers to understand our roots, and the core principles that guide us.

CERO started as a collaboration between Boston’s Black and Latino members of Mass Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health (MassCOSH) and The Boston Worker’s Alliance (BWA) to form a green business that takes into account the needs of our diverse communities, while providing a level of service that is unmatched in the composting and waste hauling space. CERO worker-owners organized around cooperatives, worker’s rights, and spread knowledge about composting in Roxbury and Dorchester as a cost-saving and sustainable alternative to the status quo.

At CERO, we use composting to create sustainable jobs that support the green economy, and we are excited to bring this conversation to the forefront of Boston's exploding food scene. Some of our first customers had never even heard of composting, and now they are expert composters who share and spread this knowledge throughout their communities. Interestingly enough, composting is about mindfulness too. It asks us to cultivate an awareness of the environment that blooms around us, and consider our thoughts, feelings, and actions towards nature and one another.

Winner of the Boston Greenovate Award in 2014, CERO will continue to provide food waste pickup and diversion services for the Boston metro area, and transport compostables to local farms where they are returned to the soil and used to support the local agricultural economy. Our mission is simple: divert food waste from landfills, save our customers money, and provide good green jobs for Boston's hard working communities. Our blog will be a place for expert advice, news, tips, and other useful information that we learn along the journey of being Boston’s cleanest and greenest commercial composter. Stay tuned!

2 MILLION POUNDS: WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF YOUR FOOD WASTE?

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 14:55:35 -0500

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.

So, what is the climate change effect of your food waste? We've created this handy calculator to do the math for you. Just plug in the amount of food waste you think your business is producing (check out this reference if you're unsure) and it will tell you the resulting CO2e from landfilling, as well as the net CO2e reduction if that same food waste were composted instead. Finally, we've used the EPA standard to determine what your saved CO2e would look like in terms of cars taken off the road for a year. (Psst: if you're not a business and your numbers are too small, get this: an average U.S. family of four produces the same amount of CO2e every year through wasted food as an average SUV would produce driving 1,000 miles from Boston to Chicago).

Enjoy the calculator, and share with anyone who might find it useful!