Composting has been around for centuries. So how did composting become the hot new thing to do in the midst of a pandemic? With people sheltering in place, and uncertain about the future, composting became an empowering and joyous act. Composting gave people a beneficial way to use food scraps and a way to offset the piles of containers that came with eating, shopping and working from home. Composting let people create their own fertilizer for Victory Gardens. Composting helped people grow flowers that attracted birds, butterflies, and bees. Last, but not least, composting gave parents something educational and fun to do with their children. Our family is part of the composting trend. Composting makes our family happy because we aren't sending food scraps and manure to the landfill. Composting also helps our garden grow. We collect fruit and vegetable peels, rinds, pits and other compostable food scraps in a little, stainless steel bucket next to the sink. When the bucket fills up, the scraps go into the composter in our backyard which turns them into what gardeners call black gold -- nutrient rich compost. We apply the finished compost to the garden, which enriches the soil. The compost helps us grow tasty and nutritious strawberries, peas, tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables without synthetic fertilizer. The birds, bees, and butterflies seem to appreciate the flowers we grow with compost, too!

We tried composting the manure from our barn. We failed. So, we turned to a professional composting company for help. We send the contents of our manure pile to Hartland Orchard in Markham. Hartland picks up our manure, composts it, and uses the compost to fertilize the cherry, apple, and peach trees on their farm. At harvest time, they bring us apples and peaches they grew using the compost.

While we live on a farm, that is absolutely not a requirement to compost. In fact, thanks to composting services that cater to townspeople, you do not even need a backyard. Lauren Gassman's Food Loop Compost in Aldie is Middleburg's closest food scrap composting service. Food Loop Compost offers three services: food scrap drop-off, food scrap pickup, and compost hub development. Food scrap drop-off allows customers to drop-off their food scraps at Food Loop-managed collection sites in Purcellville, Leesburg, Ashburn, Reston and Herndon. Food Loop pickup customers subscribe to monthly, bi-weekly or weekly pickups at their home or business. Customers receive a 5-gallon bucket to fill with food scraps. On each pickup day, Food Loop picks up the full bucket and drops off a clean one. Food Loop accepts all fruit and vegetable parts, egg shells, coffee grounds, loose-leaf tea, bread, and grains. After collecting the food scraps at drop-off and pickup points, Food Loop takes them to its composting site on Bull Run Farm. There, the company's team manages the composting process. To complete the "food loop", Food Loop Compost returns finished compost to its customers. Food Loop Compost has a Middleburg connection since Bull Run Farm is owned by the same family that owns the Red Fox Inn.

Food Loop Compost also offers services for schools and other community organizations that would like to do their own composting. Food Loop's compost hub helps organizations create and manage their own small composting sites.

Professional composting companies are significantly expanding the number of people who compost by partnering with cities, towns and HOAs to offer community-wide composting programs. These programs can reach everyone in the community. They also benefit the community by composting a wide range of materials. In addition to compostable food scraps, these programs typically accept meat and bones, yard and garden trimmings, and items like pizza boxes, cardboard compostable carry-out boxes, and paper straws. The programs also accept just about anything made from 100% cotton, wool, linen, wood, bamboo, silk, or hemp.

A typical community-sponsored composting program collects compostable items from residents weekly. Residents receive one or more buckets to fill with food scraps and other compostable items. On pickup day, residents set the buckets outside their homes so the composting company can swap the filled buckets for clean ones. The composting company takes the food scraps and other items to its composting facility. By carefully introducing the right amount of air, heat, and moisture, the facility efficiently converts what was once waste into nutrient-rich compost. Many of the community composting programs return finished compost to residents or to the community's own common garden. The composting company then sells the remaining compost to farmers, gardeners and landscapers. Farmers such as Pam Jones and Sarah Waybright of Gathering Springs Farm in Middleburg use compost from professionally managed facilities to grow vegetables for their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members and for their booth at the EatLoCo Farmers Market in One Loudoun.

Many cities and towns also sponsor food waste composting programs designed for businesses. These programs work very similarly to the residential programs. The biggest differences are in the containers and pickup schedules. Containers and pickup schedules are designed to fit the needs of each business. A busy restaurant might need multiple, large containers and daily pickups while a real estate office might need a residential size container for the office kitchen and a weekly pickup.

Community-wide composting programs are growing rapidly because they offer several benefits over other composting options:

• They are available to the entire community.
• They eliminate the need to find the money, space, and time to buy or build a home composter.
• They are convenient.
• They accept a wide range of materials including items that can't be recycled such as napkins, pizza boxes and takeout containers.
• The programs enable communities to cut down on single-use plastics. Restaurants and other businesses can switch from single-use plastics to cardboard and paper compostable service items, knowing that they and their customers will be able to compost the items.
• The programs return compost to the community, helping gardeners and farmers enrich their soil and grow nutritious food and beautiful flowers.
• They enhance the community's reputation and appeal to Millennials and members of Gen Z.
• They make people feel good because they are doing the right thing.
• They keep sizeable amounts of food waste out of landfills.

According to the EPA, the most common material reaching landfills is food waste. On average, food accounts for about 24% of the waste that arrives at landfills.

- Since landfills do not allow oxygen to reach decomposing food and other biological materials, the wastes create methane as they decompose. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that absorbs heat at 84 times the rate of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere.
- The Fauquier County landfill is almost full. Although waste haulers offload at the Fauquier landfill in Warrenton, most of the waste is then trucked to a third-party landfill in King George County.
• The programs improve water quality. Gardeners and farmers who use compost can cut down on or eliminate synthetic fertilizers. Fertilizer running off lawns, gardens and farms is an important contributor to water pollution in Goose Creek, the Potomac River, and the Chesapeake Bay.

Although composting has been around for centuries, composting became a hot new thing during the pandemic. Turning food scraps into nutrient-rich compost gave people joy and a feeling of control. Converts to composting ranged from country gardeners to busy town residents. Although the pandemic appears to be easing, the strength of composting continues to grow. Composting is poised to play an important part in building back better.

(Lynne Kaye is passionate about redesigning our economy to enable materials, including food scraps, to have many lives. She is a member of the Town of Middleburg Go Green Committee as well as a sustainability consultant and educator. The Go Green Committee was created through a Middleburg Town Council ordinance as an advisory body to the Town Council on environmental issues.)