By Skylar White (News Intern), in Bloomingdale, NY
Carter Rowley is sticking a giant thermometer into a pile of what looks like dirt. “Right here, I just turned this pile. Can you smell it?” Rowley asks.
I think it smells like wood. But Rowley says there’s a lot more to it than that:
“I guess I’m like a compost sommelier so I was going to go with rich oak tannins, and then also silage. It kind of reminds me of the nostalgic smells from a country fair. That’s what compost should smell like.”
Rowley owns Blue Line Compost in Bloomingdale, outside of Saranac Lake. He says he’s composted his food scraps his whole life. It always seemed like the most logical thing to do, and he wanted to bring the service to his community.
“Honestly, I see our local environment and certainly the global environment changing rapidly and it really scares me,” says Rowley. “I could keep doing my other job and building second and third homes for people that’s just incredibly consumptive, or I could try to do something that’s making a difference.”
Food waste in landfills makes up between 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions, largely from methane produced when food breaks down without oxygen. Rowley says that’s why oxygen is a key player in the science of composting.
“So one of our jobs is to make sure that these piles have plenty of oxygen so that the thermophilic bacteria can thrive and if it doesn’t have enough oxygen you’re going to get that really gross, noxious smell that everyone’s afraid of with composting.”
Listen to the full story on North Country Public Radio.