From Eggshells to Black Gold: Ecological Cultural Initiative's Community Compost Program

Three quirky bins crafted out of repurposed materials — one from eastern cedars from the town transfer station, another from wood from the gift shop at the Parrish Art Museum, plus 400-year-old southern white pine, and nautical ornamentation — sit among steel kinetic sculptures as a neighbor, an emu belonging to the Caiola family, looks on from behind the fence at St. Joseph’s Villa in Hampton Bays.

Looking a little ramshackle and smelling a little more so, the bins are the birthplace of “black gold,” nutrient rich soil made from kitchen scraps, Tony Romano of the Ecological Cultural Initiative explained.

“As the resource director, I’m a repurposer. I want to teach everyone how to do everything for free, or for cheap. That’s always been my mission,” he said.

ECI was conceived in 2016, when the Town of Southampton offered an organic gardening class. Its composting program has been running since 2020.

“All through COVID, this has been my happy place,” Romano enthused, offering a tour of the garden and compost area that comprises about 2 acres of the site, which serves as a retreat for Sisters of St. Joseph in Hampton Bays.

For efficient composting, you need a 3-foot-by-3-foot-by-3-foot bin, he explained. His are 4 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet, because of the amount of material ECI takes in from about 30 families from Quogue to Southampton.

Each of the three bins represents the process at different stages. An active bin hosts fresh scraps — vegetable peelings, egg shells, lemon and orange rinds and a purple cabbage head were visible. The mixture percolates for four months before the black gold can be harvested.

Romano keeps the bins on a rotation, adding in his secret ingredient: maple shavings donated from a local cabinet maker. He reckoned he’s taken in 300 bags of reclaimed maple shavings over the last three years.

A second bin percolates for about four months, while the third is home to the finished product ready for harvesting.

“I have a thriving community program,” Romano said. People bring their scraps to the site, record the weight, and throw it into the pile. Seven members pay $1.50 per week, or $20 for three months, for pick-up service.

ECI furnishes a 6-gallon metal pail for the cost of the pail, and members pay $30 for three months or $100 for the year to deliver waste material to be composted. At the end of three months, they get back a pail full of black gold.

Thrusting a gloved hand into a pail full of rich, dark soil, he assures that it’s much more than ordinary dirt. Participants use it to enrich gardens, indoor plants, even lawns. Romano said one participant spreads it across her yard and “raves about her grass.”

Alongside the compost section of the garden, large kinetic sculptures by local artist Fritz Cass — a marlin, a swordfish, a grouper — spin lazily. In the garden itself, two steel mermaids from his Visions in Steel collection reach to heaven. Soon, Romano said, they’ll be joined by a kinetic stainless steel dragonfly, the symbol of ECI. The group has hosted art shows there, with commissions from sales used to further ECI activities.

And there are plenty.

In addition to the composting and growing food for the local food pantry, the site hosts area schoolchildren. Last week, local students visited the site to learn about composting and native plants. Later in the week, Romano was slated to meet with a gardening club interested in starting a composting program at another local school. For a time, the Hampton Bays School District donated all its kitchen scraps, but COVID struck and the program has yet to resume.

During the summer, Romano taught kids at the Quogue Beach Club about composting; two bins are kept there.

Kids have a concern about the planet that’s more urgent than older generations felt at their age, he said. That worry is coming through, but no solutions are, Romano said.

“Composting is something they can do,” he said. “I stress how easy it is. Show them how to assist nature in what it will do.”

Joining the tour, ECI’s zero waste manager Joe Lamport observed that younger people seem more mindful about waste — his adult children are a part of a “buy nothing” group focused on repurposing. That’s another aspect of the zero waste movement, and a sign of growing awareness, he feels.

The garden itself has also been a place of community collaboration. Bricks for pathways were donated, and ECI received a grant to redo the irrigation “because we keep adding more beds. We’ll have 24 and then we’ll be maxed out,” Romano said.

During COVID, Eagle Scout Corey Hoffman and his father built eight beds and installed irrigation. “They fundraised and did all the work themselves,” Romano said.

Lamport offered insight into what drew him to the volunteer role. He spoke of “the dawning realization that we’re just living our lives the wrong way, just consuming, not mindful of what it is we leave behind, all the waste.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the largest single source of municipal solid waste in the United States consists of food scraps, which are estimated to account for more than 20 percent of the total solid waste stream.

“We have to reorient ourselves and once we reorient ourselves, we discover that what we’re throwing away is incredibly valuable,” Lamport said. “The soil on Long Island is very fragile, and we abuse it. What we need to do is replenish it, and the easiest way to replenish it is to get in there and start making more soil … 3 million people on Long Island, and our primary export is waste. That doesn’t make sense. This is an easy way we can turn that around and put it to a better advantage here at home.

“It’s just crazy that we don’t do it as a community,” he continued. “The more we can engage and take responsibility for ourselves and what we consume, the better our lives will be.”

ECI hopes to lobby the town to create a pilot composting program at the municipal transfer stations. While elected officials and environmentalists from the North and South forks met recently and discussed the need for a regional waste plan, Romano doesn’t agree a comprehensive, countywide plan is the answer.

“I think it’s the exact opposite,” he said. “I think you need one passionate person in a community that oversees volunteers that do things altruistically. That is the only way to make it sustainable. Local best practices in small groups.

“Just put a pail out,” Lamport added.