A Community Composting Story

Even the Compost is Smiling at CUCC

reprinted with permission from the author, Gary Smith of CUCC

Community United Church of Christ (CUCC) in Raleigh, NC, has been working to decrease climate change and its impact on those of low income since 2007.  Their latest effort, composting, was inspired by friends at the Church of the Nativity Episcopal Church in Raleigh who have advocated carbon sequestration and composting for the last few years.

CUCC started collecting Fellowship Hour food waste and composting it with a commercial composting service in July of 2018.  They also encouraged friends and members of CUCC to bring their compostable waste (including meat, bones and pizza boxes) to the church to be composted too.  Soon some of the families began bringing theirs, and the number of people has continued to grow. The congregation had diverted 2200 pounds of organic matter (over a ton) from the landfill by February of 2019.  This generated 550 pounds of compost and prevented the production of 290 pounds of methane.  Since methane is at least a 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, this is like removing over 7000 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere (over three tons) or not driving your car 12,500 miles!!

In 2015, CUCC installed a 9.2 kW solar array on the fellowship hall roof and are very happy that the array now supplies about ½ of the electricity for the church main building and keeps about 14,000 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.

Church members were surprised and elated when they realized that their new composting effort is comparable to the solar panels in CO2 equivalent prevention – 7,000 pounds in 8 months vs 14,000 pounds in 12 months!

In the spring of 2019 composting costs increased and the church was not sure it could sustain and continue their composting program.  The Justice in a Changing Climate team (JCC) saw the impact and how much the congregation was enjoying being able to compost, so they sought to raise the funds by direct appeal and advertise the work more at the same.  They held a two-week compost education and fun event and asked 11 families to contribute an additional $120 over their pledge to keep the composting going.

During the composting Ministry Moment during the worship service on March 10th, one of the JCC members and her daughters told the congregation about the value of composting and offered them the opportunity to contribute.  After church that week and the next they also offered the opportunity at tables in the Narthex and Fellowship Hall. A short and humorous play entitled, “Ani and Aeri Go to Dinner” about anaerobic and aerobic food decomposition, was performed after church on March 17.  Then three 20 minute workshops were given focusing on the how-to’s of reducing one’s carbon footprint by composting and reusing items both at CUCC and at home.  The events were well attended and appreciated, and the congregation stepped up to provide more than the funds needed to keep the church composting for the next year!  Indeed they stopped fund raising early.

CUCC has come to appreciate how much its church family wants to learn what to do and how willing they are to follow through.  

**The NC Composting Council would like to thank author, Gary Smith, of Community United Church of Christ, for allowing us to post this story in our blog.  We offer it as a shining example of the large impact a small groups of people can have on global warming by simply diverting their kitchen waste from the landfill to a composter.  We commend CUCC for their efforts and great success.