Dr. Chris Furedy" <furedy@yorku.ca> wrote:
>The commercial makers of compost, such as KCDC and Terra Firma
>are not interested in solving the waste disposal problems of the city
>--they want to get as pure organics as possible, and so they attempt
>to get market wastes.

In line with the effort to generate a parallel discussion on large scale
composting (not household) with the participants, I am planning an ECO-FARM
project in Samoa (http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ibs/info/samoa/ecofarm). With the
Department of Lands, Surveys and Environment, we are also thinking the the
same lines of strategy to identify and use only "pure organics". The proposed
site for the ECO-FARM is near the city's dump site and basically we would
accept trucks with high or pure vegetable market or garden wastes. I am not
sure at this moment if there is a tipping fee at the dump. If so, the
trucking company can make a small savings.

The status of the project is still an intention and needs careful analysis
before we launched into one such project. At the moment, I am not aware of
any on-going large scale composting activities in Samoa, though there are
research projects on composting. I know a household that process 1 m3 of
shredded green materials per week to produce compost for their own use as
well as to supply demands of some members of the Flower Growers Association.
(see also http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ibs/info/samoa/s-w-samoa2000.html).

Cutting costs in collection would be to get the greens delivered to the
compost site for free. In an ideal situation, if a gate fee to a dump is
imposed per truckload, then there is incentive to leave greens at a compost
site. If a collection of greens is done only e.g. once a week (after
weekends), then some arrangements with the garbage collectors can be made to
deliver the green portion of their collection. An alternative scenario is
that households with greens can give the ECO-FARM a call and we would come
and pick up the greens. Usually, household would just burn the greens in
their backyards and save the woody parts for their regular Sunday grill.
Household garbage collection is free for the household in Apia.

Q: Does anyone know if any of these ideas for getting free greens or call for
free collection of greens in practice anywhere ?

So what Chris said (below) holds true in our case.
>The removal of the decomposed matter does not
>reduce collection and transportation costs but it saves dump space and so
>there are is significant reduction in land costs and perhaps dump
>management costs.

We are looking for funding agencies that are interested to sponsor a
composting project in Samoa. It is not possible to get funding via bilateral
govt funds since it is required that the proposed project must be on top of
the national priority list. I know of just one agency that provides small
grants to NGOs in Samoa.

Comments and note of caution on starting a compost project would be
appreciated. I also wish to work in cooperation with people who may wish to
join this sub-project of the ECO-FARM and particularly in the submission of
the project to fundng agencies.

regards
jacky foo