In Bed With Only Highway

I drag around a buttload of stuff on my bike, but this is amazing.

On any given day in Northampton, Massachusetts, you might see something that would raise eyebrows elsewhere: Someone on a bike, pulling a giant trailer heaped with trash. You'll see this in rain, snow, or heat and humidity; on residential streets and on Main Street; even going uphill in traffic.

Since late 2002, the Pedal People have picked up and hauled more than 341,000 cubic feet of trash, recyclables, and compost, replacing big loud fuel-burning garbage trucks with...bicycles (at prices competitive with the trucks). It's not a viable model everywhere, and nobody's getting rich doing this, but it's the sort of carbon footprint-reducing business we should look at as a model for the places it would work.

You might think a bicycle hauling business wouldn't be viable everywhere because of weather - that it would only work in extremely mild climates. But Northampton gets snow in the winter and has real summers, and the Pedal People rarely delay pickups due to weather.

If there's a town small enough for this service, it's the microdot on the map I live in! But wait - Northampton's not the only steamy composting hotspot.

The Pedal to Petal process is a closed cycle, from food to compost to soil and back to food again, all without the use of fossil fuel dependent vehicles and machines.

Pedal to Petal members are involved in the creation and maintainance of organic edible landscapes throughout the city of Victoria. The compost created through this project will feed the soil and feed the city. An increase in locally produced food will mean a decrease in the amount of food imported from off-island. This further reduces the amount of fossil fuels being used in the course of providing ourselves with sustainance. Not only that, but small-scale organic agriculture has far less of an impact on the environment than farms that rely on the use of heavy machinery. We turn the compost piles by hand and use a method of cultivation that eliminates the need for roto-tilling. Once again, a vast reduction in fossil fuel use.

This is such an exciting, sensible idea. If I were an enterprising, underemployed bicycle owner with a big yard, I'd go into stinky business for myself. Some composting afficionadas go big and get a truck.

EARTHGIRL COMPOSTING will provide you with a five gallon bucket. We will pick up your full bucket weekly, biweekly or monthly, leave you an empty clean bucket and deliver your waste to Vermont Compost Company and/or Intervale Compost Products.

YOU DECIDE how often and we will do the rest.

When you compost with EARTHGIRL COMPOSTING you are making a difference.

All waste is delivered to Vermont Compost Company and/or Intervale Compost Products.

Vermont Compost Company was founded by organic crop growing professionals to meet the need for high quality composts and compost based living soil mixes for certified organic plant production. Vermont Compost Company recycles over 400 tons of food residuals annually and relies on bio-fuels, non-toxic lubricants, and plant-based oils for all of the equipment on the farm.

Intervale Compost Products supports our community and sustainable agriculture by turning waste into compost and selling that compost to organic farmers, gardeners, and landscapers.

Startling use of capital letters aside, that's a wild idea come to efficient fruition. Check this out:

We provide participants in the compost program with their own post-consumer, recycled compost bucket, free of charge. Each bucket comes lined with a completely compostable cornstarch bag.

On the appropriate collection night, participants place their buckets on their front porch. We empty the contents of each bucket into our collection truck, replace the bag, and put the bucket back on the participant's porch, ready to receive another week's compost.

The collected compost is then taken to a city composting site, managed by the Department of Parks and Horticulture, where it is processed for re-integration into the ecosystem. The following spring, we deliver finished compost from the site to participants in the program, free-of-charge.

Montreal returns compost to participants, which is either great or a great threat. Weren't expecting buckets of nutrient-rich compost on your doorstep? Surprise! Goo for you! Were you to, say, Google compost services, you would find such services listed all over the place.

I'm not saying you should consider this an investment opportunity, but I am saying that in 2010, there is money to be made in dirt that can clean up your karma.