Tabletop composting:  When Tracie Troxler returned to Manatee County after living in California for 20 years, she brought with her the dream of creating a community garden. During the process, Tracie discovered here was “a huge food waste challenge and a soil challenge,” that led her to establish the Sunshine Community Compost, a nonprofit organization that educates the community to stop automatically scraping all their leftover food into trash bins and garbage disposals. Rather, it is very simple to transform leftovers into compost that enriches the soil so it can grow more food, Tracie says, “which is a closed loop of sustainability that literally makes the world a better place.”

Recently, Tracie visited the DSCA, showcasing her “Tabletop Composting initiative,” in an effort to show condominium residents how they too can participate.

Since their first pilot program in late 2016, the non-profit organization has diverted over 28,000 pounds of material from the landfill (over 10 tons) while building local fertility and reducing the impacts of pollution. During the 2019 Compost-A-Thon, 1300 pounds of food scraps were diverted from the landfill in just 1 week! Community composting and local resource recovery are growing movements that help support local self-reliance, urban agriculture, local abundance and reciprocity with the Earth. To learn more about how you can participate, go to: www.sunshinecommunitycompost.org

July 20th, 2019