The road to reducing the amount of food scrap that is needlessly buried is littered with easily avoidable obstacles, and history proves it.
By TIM
FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff
Ronald Vaz, owner of My Blue Heaven pig farm, uses food scrap from public schools and restaurants to feed his hogs and sows. |
From about 1920 to as late as 1980, residential food-scrap collection was practiced in many Rhode Island communities.
Typically, municipalities awarded a contract to a local pig farmer to collect food scrap. Much like curbside recycling collection, the farmer made weekly pickups of food scrap. Most of this nutrient-rich material was stored in 12- to 15-gallon buckets secured in in-ground bins along the edge of driveways or in backyards.
The farm's pigs were eventually processed at a slaughterhouse in Providence. "It truly was a community-wide recycling program,” Marshall said.
Local food waste was abundant and less expensive than buying feed shipped from other parts of the country. Pig farms occasionally took large quantities of spoiled food. Marshall recalled receiving loads of blighted potatoes from Maine, as well as an abundance of diseased cranberries from Cape Cod. Both were fine for pigs after boiling.
By the late 1970s, a push to centralize waste management took hold in Rhode Island. Municipal dumps closed and cities and towns tried to save money by combing their waste and sending it to the Central Landfill in Johnston.
Similar-sized pig farms once operated across much of the state, in Warren, Barrington, Portsmouth, Cumberland and most communities surrounding Providence. Larger operations have closed in recent decades in Cranston and Warwick. Three larger pig farms still operate in Johnston and receive commercial food scrap from grocery stores and bakeries and expired milk from dairy farms. None, however, offer residential food-scrap collection.
There are only seven licensed hog farmers in Rhode Island. There is a big push regionally for composting and other forms of organic waste management. Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut have new laws that transition organic waste from landfills and incinerators to food pantries, farms and compost facilities. Rhode Island introduced a similar bill recently and Providence is experimenting with residential food-scrap collection hubs.
This
scrap was brought to a nearby pig farm, where it was boiled and fed to hungry
pigs. It was a sustainable practice. Little was thrown away, and the pig manure
was used as fertilizer by produce farmers and landscapers.
Thousands of in-ground bins like this one in Barrington were used at homes across Rhode Island to keep food scrap until the pig farmer came by. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News photos) |
Manuel
Marshall grew up on Marshall Hog Farm, the half-acre pig farm started by his
father in 1930 on Massasoit Avenue in Bristol. Marshall began working on the
farm at age 15 in 1965 and worked there until 1980 when the farm was sold. It
closed four years later.
Marshall
worked 16-hour days six days a week, plus eight hours on Sundays. Each day
began at 3:30 a.m., as Marshall and a crew of two others headed out in a single
truck to gather food scrap from some 7,000 receptacles across a town of 26,000
residents. The collections usually ended by 7:30 a.m. just as school buses and
morning traffic got going. Special trips were made to larger institutions such
as public housing buildings and Newport Naval Station, which stored its food
scrap in 55-gallon steel drums.
Local food waste was abundant and less expensive than buying feed shipped from other parts of the country. Pig farms occasionally took large quantities of spoiled food. Marshall recalled receiving loads of blighted potatoes from Maine, as well as an abundance of diseased cranberries from Cape Cod. Both were fine for pigs after boiling.
“The hog
is the perfect recycling machine,” he said.
Marshall
keeps a receipt from 1978 showing that the town paid $31,000 to the farm for
collecting Bristol's residential food scrap, a sum that compensated seven
employees.
Change in plans
By the late 1970s, a push to centralize waste management took hold in Rhode Island. Municipal dumps closed and cities and towns tried to save money by combing their waste and sending it to the Central Landfill in Johnston.
There
were environmental benefits to closing local dumps, but Marshall isn't
convinced that communities saved money. He also noted that it ended a network
of local jobs. “They lost out on a process that had gone on for hundreds of
years,” he said.
There
were drawbacks and challenges to local food-scrap collection, Marshall
admitted. The farm ran ads in the local newspaper reminding residents what type
of scrap to put in their in-ground bins. This residential food scrap attracted
insects and rodents. Summer residents unwittingly put trash in the food-scrap
bins. Summer months also required twice-weekly pickups to reduce odor problems.
Nevertheless,
Marshall said the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. “Any time we bring it
local, that’s a good thing," he said.
Pig population changes
Similar-sized pig farms once operated across much of the state, in Warren, Barrington, Portsmouth, Cumberland and most communities surrounding Providence. Larger operations have closed in recent decades in Cranston and Warwick. Three larger pig farms still operate in Johnston and receive commercial food scrap from grocery stores and bakeries and expired milk from dairy farms. None, however, offer residential food-scrap collection.
State
veterinarian Scott Marshall (no relation to Manuel Marshall) said smaller,
local pig farming likely became less profitable. While oversight by state and
federal regulators was constant, some communities may have imposed restrictions
on pig farming. Many farmers also learned they could make more money hauling
trash than collecting food scrap.
Smaller
pig farms still exist, and more than ever embrace sustainability. Ronald Vaz,
owner ofMy Blue Heaven Farm in Pascoag, has raised pigs for more
than 40 years. Today, his sows and hogs command a premium price locally and
from markets as far as Pennsylvania.
Vaz
knows pig feed and said local food scrap is best. He collects food scrap daily
from the six local public schools in Burrillville, a nearby IGA grocery store
and the leftover chicken dinners from the renowned Wright’s Farm Restaurant.
“It’s a
really good feed," he said. "Otherwise it would go to the landfill."
Pigs,
Vaz explained, are high-performing composting machines. After he boils the
food, the pigs pick through bones and nudge aside stray plastic or other
debris. Their manure is mixed with wood chips delivered for free by utility
trucks from the Pascoag Utility District. The wood is mulched-up branches and
leaves from tree pruning done along power lines.
This mix
of manure and wood chips is picked up regularly by a loam farmer. It’s a rich
fill used as a landscaping fertilizer. Nothing goes to waste.
Vaz collects
the food scrap for a fee but the service isn't particularly profitable. His
bins require maintenance and he pays a neighborhood teenager to power-wash the
empty barrels. “It’s not worth a farmer to pick up (for free). If it comes to
them, that’s a different thing,” he said.
Vaz
recalled when, decades ago, he collected residential food scrap while working
for another pig farm. “That was really bad,” he said, noting that food from
residences was often spoiled, moldy, littered with maggots and frozen in
the winter.
Vaz
tends to his pigs seven days a week. He and his wife haven’t taken a vacation
in a long while. But he is content with his routine. His pigs fetch a good
price, and he even takes orders for direct-from-the-farm cuts of pork, as well
as beef and turkey he periodically raises. His wife also runs a popular goat
milk business. The milk and products such as soaps and fudge sell quickly from
a seasonal farm stand. He hopes to pass the thriving business on to a relative
in the near future.
Until then,
many people and pigs rely on Vaz to sustain the community while keeping alive a
connection to the past. “I’m really a stupid, old pig farmer,” he said in his
amused manner. “I don’t know much.”
History lesson
There are only seven licensed hog farmers in Rhode Island. There is a big push regionally for composting and other forms of organic waste management. Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut have new laws that transition organic waste from landfills and incinerators to food pantries, farms and compost facilities. Rhode Island introduced a similar bill recently and Providence is experimenting with residential food-scrap collection hubs.
The
recently filed bills (one by Charlestown state Representative Donna Walsh) promote the creation of food-scrap businesses, such as
anaerobic digesters and composting sites.
Rhode Island has one large-scale
composting facility, Earth Care Farm in Charlestown. Leo Pollock and Nat Harris
are kicking off their industrial-scale composting initiative in a few months
with a pilot program that will initially collect food scrap from schools and
restaurants and deliver the material to Earth Care Farm. Eventually The Compost Plant will accept food scrap from the urban
communities around Greater Providence and produce nutrient-rich compost.
A
commercial-scale anaerobic digester has been proposed for North Kingstown, and
pigs farms may also have a bigger role in better managing Rhode Island food
scrap — an important resource for rebuilding the state's eroding topsoil that
has been buried and wasted for more than three decades.
The road
to reduce that number is undecided, but advocates of expanded composting and
sustainable waste management have plenty of recent history to draw from if they
want ideas on how it might work.