How I Helped People in a Conservative Town in Connecticut to Compost
Two months ago, I unexpectedly left Spain and headed to one of the least glamorous destinations: suburban Connecticut. I came to support my girlfriend Shylin, who’s caring for a family member, and we were staying with her great-aunt for a few weeks.
No, Connecticut didn’t sound exciting, but after traveling the world for two years, I’ve learned that every place has magic waiting for me. I always find something I’m drawn to or gives me a jolt of excitement.
On my first day there, the Vermonter in me couldn’t help but ask, “Excuse me, do you compost?” The answer was no. I felt a little stab in the chest as I tossed my banana peel in the trash. The landfill is no place for a banana peel, I thought.
I decided that in Connecticut I would channel my interest towards composting.
But there was a challenge. Despite being in my home country, I didn’t exactly feel in my comfort zone.
I Was in Foreign Territory: Suburbia
I’ve walked through sketchy parts of El Salvador, Colombia, and the “rough parts” of cities like Birmingham, Alabama.
Yet, where I’m often least comfortable is in stereotypical American suburbia. For me, a Hispanic with a love of urbanism, language learning, and a passion for fighting climate change, the suburbs go against just about all of my values.
As I wrote about in my essay on my other Connecticut excursion, The Highways Tried to Kill Hartford, the suburbs were built with the explicit purpose of continuing racial and economic segregation.
Today, Suffield is still 82.5% white and voted straight down the middle in the 2020 presidential election.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that in this politically purple town, composting may have been met with resistance.
Could I Show This White Suburban Town The Fun of Composting?
Over the last year, I’ve felt a pull to take more action on climate change. The world needs us, here and now. In Connecticut, I saw that composting could be that action.
Step 1: Ask For Approval and Start With The Leader
For a few weeks, we stayed with Shylin’s great aunt — Aunt Cappy — who is the head of the entire extended family, the connector between all the cousins. She loves gardening, seeing her grandchildren, and enjoying her retirement.
I asked her how she felt about composting. She seemed cautiously on board. “Many of my friends in gardening club do it.” I was standing on the shoulders of their example. It reminded me of a study I read in the book Saving Us by Katherine Hayhoe.
The study showed that “Having solar panels on a house near you, where you could see them and talk to a real live person who had them, it turned out, was the biggest predictor of whether you’d get them yourself.”
(I write about this study more in this article on tips to talk about climate change.)
We’re more likely to compost if our neighbors compost. I have members of the Suffield Gardening Club, then, to thank. Without them, my idea to ask about composting may have gotten politely shut down.
I had approval, now it was time to act.
Step 2: Start Simple with a Quick DIY Compost Bin
My friend and writer Jess Anders would call this a great example of “making messy magic.”
I didn’t want to spend too much time or money setting up a composting apparatus. I also didn’t want it to be invasive to Aunt Cappy.
After researching do-it-yourself compost bins, I decided to make one out of a 5-gallon bucket.
How I made a simple 5-gallon compost bucket
1. Get a 5 gallon bucket
2. Drill holes in it everywhere
3. Add “browns” to the bottom.
“Browns” are carbon-rich material like cardboard, twigs, and leaves. You want your compost to have a balance of “greens” and “browns.”
4. Start composting!
Each time I took it out, I shook the 5-gallon bin up. This is also much easier than stirring a big recycling bin.
This cost $5, about 20 minutes of my time, and we could start immediately.
I used a Greek yogurt container for the countertop
This is usually the easiest common item you can use. If you don’t have one, buy some yogurt and eat it fast.
Step 3: Talk About It
Next, I made a point to talk about it with other cousins, aunts, and uncles. “Hey, we’re composting over at Cappy’s,” I would say. Was this annoying? Probably.
Remembering my own strategies to talk about climate change, I was careful to avoid any guilt, like it was something they should do because it’s good for the planet. Instead, I focused on what I liked about it: getting high-quality soil while keeping food scraps out of the landfill.
One of Aunt Cappy’s daughters started making jokes about it. “You’re probably going to get a compost bin from David for Christmas,” she said. Everyone laughed.
Yet, I knew in its own way this making progress, because now they were thinking about composting. It had entered their awareness. “All press is good press,” I thought to myself. While not always true, the more the thought about composting, the better.
Step 4: Research Town Options
Three days later, Aunt Cappy’s daughter sent Shylin a screenshot from a town announcement: they were giving away big compost bins for backyards.
She had done this step for me. Even though she made jokes about composting, something in her was excited about it, or at least not totally closed off to it. Again, I quietly celebrated a small victory.
Step 5: Watch Them Take Initiative
I mentioned to Aunt Cappy that her daughter had told us about the town compost bins. I told her if she wanted to compost herself once we left, it would be a great option.
A few mornings later, she came in and told me she was going to the dump to get a compost bin. What a nice surprise! She was taking matters into her own hands. “I’ll go with you,” I told her, putting off my writing because I knew this was a momentous occasion. We drove to the town landfill and picked up a compost bin.
I set it up in her backyard, as chronicled in this TikTok.
Step 6: Leave It In Their Hands
Of course, our time in Connecticut would end. Yet, I felt I was able to leave a little piece of me in suburban Connecticut.
I know Aunt Cappy has her friends in the gardening club who can help her compost, and each time we go visit, I’ll check up on it. But, my work there is complete. The rest is in there hands.
I know I’m not going to change someone’s lifestyle by pressuring or guilting them. Yet, at the same time, I had to take initiative and at times be annoying.
Such is the balance of fighting for change in the world, on both small and big scales.
I believe that for the change to be lasting, for the composting habit to stick, it has to become something they do for their own reasons. Maybe that’s for the garden, maybe it’s because they want to make less waste.
As a small parting gift, I got her a more proper countertop bin, so she didn’t have to rely on the Greek yogurt containers anymore.
They would be receiving compost-related gifts from me after all.
Individual Action is The Gateway Drug to Systemic Change
In writing more about climate change, I’ve been confronted with the debate about individual action vs systemic change. After all, individual action factually isn’t enough. In fact, you can argue it distracts us from spending our energy fighting for systemic change.
However, I don’t agree.
By taking action, we learn more about the systems. We think more about this systems. The widespread nature of our trash-making problem becomes more apparent if you compost and make less waste. Individual and systemic action are not mutually exclusive; they’re mutually reinforcing. Individual action is the gateway drug to fighting for systemic change.
And composting is not a bad way to start.
This Won’t Be The Last of My Composting Initiatives
Shylin and I just signed a lease in New York, and I’ve already begun the composting here in the city.
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