GoBike Hauls Compost in Beacon!

Ever hear of bicycle-powered hauling? I have, but it's something I associate with cities on the West Coast and places where cars aren't as readily available. Here in Beacon, we now have GoBike to pick up compost and anything that can be moved!

It's a 39 pound Giant that can haul a refrigerator!

The project is the brainchild of Kim Myers, who loves biking, local sustainable food, and compost. Starting this spring, she'll be signing Beacon residents up to have their kitchen scraps collected on a weekly basis. The cost will be about $20/month. Included is a 5 gallon bucket with lid (donated by local businesses) and a list of what kinds of things are compostable. Once a week, she'll pick up your bucket and leave an empty bucket, and bring the material to various compost bins througout Beacon, including the compost of Common Ground Farm. Nothing will be leaving Beacon - it doesn't get much more sustainable than this! All transport will be by a work bicycle built by Peoples Bicycle pulling a trailer.


Kim has been involved in environmental education for years; she's led trail building crews with the Student Conservation Corps (SCA), helped to protect public land, and currently teaches at the Randolph School. All these roads kept bringing her back to sustainable food movement, which led to her involvement with Common Ground Farm last summer. As a result of her experiences, she believes that everyone who can produce food for themselves in some capacity, should. If you have a yard, get some chickens and enjoy fresh eggs. Use the eggshells to enrich the soil in your compost. Use the finished compost to fortify the nutrients in your garden, and feast on your very own fresh vegetables throughout the growing season. For those of us who haven't quite ventured into this satisfying and hardworking lifestyle, this is what is called a closed loop system, which "completely reuses, recycles or composts all materials." And since we're on the topic of defining, here's the difference between kitchen scraps and compost. Kitchen scraps are eggshells, coffee grounds, organic vegetable matter, and other organic matter. Meat, fish, poultry, fats, grease, oil, sauces, food inside plastic bags, dairy, pet poop or yard waste will not be composted. Compost is the finished product - plant matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. I happen to be one of the uninitiated, but here's a compelling case for compost. If a family of 4 starts recycling paper, plastic and metal, the garbage they generate per week will dramatically shrink. If they start a compost practice in addition, they will soon have even less in their garbage can every week.


Why is composting important? From the GoBike site, "Composting is good for the planet! Composting by bike is a good choice if you do not have the space, time, knowledge, or desire to deal with kitchen scraps on your own. Compost will happen no matter where the food scraps end up – if it's the landfill they will decompose anaerobically (without air), producing methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. 14% of our municipal waste consists of food matter, with less than 3% being recovered or recycled. In total, landfills produce 20% of the world's methane emissions, a huge contributor to global climate change." (All figures courtesy of www.epa.gov)


In Beacon, there are a lot of people who are trying to do their part to be more sustainable. It can take a lot of one's time to grow your own food, cook, and maintain everything else in life. There are many folks, families and individuals in Beacon who may be interested in starting to compost, and this is where Kim can really help. She can either pick up your compost so you have time to do other great projects, or she can help you make your own at your house. She'll be teaching compost workshops to groups, too. Composting by bicycle is a great way to get out in the community and help people think about their food needs and food sources. She's looking forward to connecting with the community to help them fit sustainable food into their busy lives!

Check out the website, or contact Kim at bicyclerevolution@gmail.com or call her at 845.418.2ECO (326). Other services provided by GoBike are hauling and delivery - see website for more details. The first hauling project she'll be doing is for the Electronics Cleanup Day on 4/2, where electronics can be dropped off at The Coffee Shoppe or picked up for free by GoBike. More details coming soon, stay posted!