AdkAction’s Compost for Good project joined with environmental and recycling businesses, organizations, community groups and individuals around the globe in celebrating International Compost Awareness Week during the first week of May. The theme of this year’s Compost Awareness Week brings together three of our distinct project areas: “Grow, Eat… COMPOST… Repeat.” The theme recognizes the circular movement of the organics recycling process flowing from farm to table to farm again.

Grow

AdkAction Project: Adirondack Pollinator Project

Pollinators sustain our ecosystems and produce our natural resources by helping plants reproduce. According to the FDA, the commercial production of more than 90 crops in the United States relies on bee pollination, including apples, melons, cranberries, pumpkins, squash, broccoli, and almonds. Unfortunately, pollinator populations are in decline due to habitat loss and fragmentation, pesticide use, climate change, and disease.

Even if you are not growing vegetables and fruit at home, you can ensure a future where pollinators thrive, native habitat abounds, and local farms continue to benefit from pollinator activity. Help save these birds, bees, butterflies, and bats by embracing pollinator-friendly native plants and practices in your garden and yard.

Take Action:

• Plant a garden
• Volunteer to help plant community pollinator gardens
• Request free pollinator seeds
• Donate to our Pollinator project fund

Eat

AdkAction Projects: Farmacy & Fair Food Pricing

Incorporating local farms into our food security work is important to us as we strive to build long-term sustainability and resilience into our food system, and we are committed to keeping our Adirondack neighbors fed with not just any calories, but fresh and nutritious food that nourishes the whole person and the whole community.

By choosing to buy food from nearby farms, you can support sustainable growing practices that minimize environmental impact while strengthening the local economy. Small farms often grow more variety, which protects biodiversity and ultimately, long-term food security.

We are working towards a future in which Adirondack farmers can feed the region and local families can afford to buy local food through our Fair Food Pricing program, and we’re expanding access to fresh healthy food in towns and villages though our Farmacy project.

Take Action:

• Use our Farmacy Toolkit to replicate our storefront model to address food access barriers within your own community
• Volunteer for Food Systems opportunities
• Donate to our Fair Food Pricing fund

Compost

AdkAction Project: Compost for Good

We believe that community composting is an important part of building a more resilient world. By keeping food waste local, we keep resources local, which allows us to more directly support our land and our neighbors. Composting keeps organic matter out of landfills, reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

Take Action:

• Join the Compost for Good Discussion Group on Facebook to ask composting questions and share your compost knowledge
• Start composting at home
• If starting a backyard composting system doesn’t work for you, look into subscribing to a local composting service like Placid Earth or Blue Line Compost
• Donate to help bring large-scale composters to more communities in the Adirondacks

Repeat!

Finished compost can be used to grow healthy pollinator-friendly plants and to build sustainable food systems by restoring the nutrients to the soil at local farms.  For example, this compost was donated by Placid Earth, a student-run community composter (using the Compost for Good design) at Lake Placid Central School. Our Pollinator Project  spread this compost at Saranac Lake Community Solar Farm to ensure pollinator-friendly native seeds would have a strong start this spring!

We love it when our projects “cross-pollinate” each other!