Here at Blue Lake Rancheria, we’re doing our part in closing the food waste loop.
We want to enrich and build healthy soil which is an essential component of a sustainable food system.
At the heart of our work with plant propagation, meal preparation, and crop management is our compost. Our composting efforts are funded by a grant from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (Cal Recycle) through California Climate Investments.
Composting is a method to return nutrients that would otherwise be lost, to the soil. It also is a way to manage plant and other biological waste through decomposition management.
Composting results in a direct reduction of greenhouse gasses from managing organic waste on-site and preventing organic matter from being incorporated in landfills.
As a product of our composting program Blue Lake Rancheria has been able to expand our yield to support over 100 households that receive meals with items sourced from our Daluviwi’ garden.
About 40 percent of landfill waste is organic material such as food waste. Buried under layers of waste in landfills, food cannot decompose properly.
The aerobic compost that the Blue Lake Rancheria’s Environmental Programs department creates and uses needs to be tended to weekly in order the proper breakdown of waste to take place.
Our staff not only handles the waste from routine garden practices but to also recycles the spent grains and other food waste from the Casino.
Blue Lake Rancheria is continuously working to limit greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration.
For more information about our Daluviwi’ garden: https://www.tea.bluelakerancheria-nsn.gov/…/daluviwico…/
For more about composting and food waste: https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/why
