I previously blogged about the Vision Recycling programs for recycling kitchen and garden waste for Santa Cruz County. My Master Composter class was hosted at the Vision facility at the Buena Vista landfill in Watsonville and given a tour. Since then the kitchen scrap composting has been outsourced to another county and the Ecocomp that program produced will no longer be available. (I put a truck load of it on my garden this Spring with great results!) Now the County has decide to take over green waste recycling. Vision has set up a web site to inform residents and ask them to contact the Board of Supervisors about this decision. Take a look. I was impressed with the Vision program and hate to see it being whittled away.
In my March 16 blog I wrote:
From the food bank we went to the Vision Recycling facility at the Buena Vista landfill. They turn yardwaste and other green waste into a variety of mulches and landscaping products and have been active in Santa Cruz County since 1997. They turn 90% of our green waste into products that go back to the soil.
Vision Recycling also has a program to collect and compost kitchen scraps from fifty county restaurants and turn it into EcoComp for use on gardens and farms. Unfortunately, this pilot program is in danger of being discontinued, but Vision Recycling and the county are working diligently to find a way to continue composting this material and they have a plan for a larger facility in the future.
Vision Recycling made a generous grant to the Master Composter program which made it possible for my class to take place. The county has had to cut funds to this program in the current economic crisis. In fact, all of the Ecology Action composting programs are in danger of being cut due to lack of funds. But an inspired new group of Master Composters is about to go out and join the other 200 already trained to promote putting our kitchen and yard waste back to enrich the soil.
I’ll be wilderness camping all next week and won’t have any access to electricity, let alone the internet, but will be back after the weekend.
Sylvia Patience, Author 