[USCC] Small scale composting with restaurants

[camilo cortes aguirre]

Hi Michele

I ran a small - medium scaled composting operations on a community gardens for both restaurants and community members.  I can tell you that design and planning are key to the type of food and the volume of food you will be receiving.  Dealing with roaches and rodents will happen regardless, especially if you have low tech systems and you want to avoid spreading pesticides around your piles.  
I had static piles that were turned ideally once a week or worst case once a month.  Enough time for rodents to make nests and breed like crazy.  To avoid this if you have the capabilities design a site that provides even aeration and to most of the pile and turn it very often (every 5 or 6 days roughly).  There were rodents in the garden already so that a big problem very fast for me.  Aeration will scare the rats and also help your pile compost faster so that pests don't end up feeding from your pile.  

Having said all this, plan for worst case scenario always and be strict with the type of food you put in your pile.  I added bread as an experiment the first two months and that was probably my worst mistake with the piles.  These piles were roughly two tonnes each.  

Camilo Cortes
 
Juan Camilo Cortes Aguirre
778-828-6273




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