For those of you who have been hesitant to get back into the social swing of things, now that many pandemic restrictions have been eased, come meet your favorite aerobic bacteria at Black Bear Composting at 4:00PM on Thursday, September 23.

This will be our first tour to the Black Bear site in Crimora since June 2019. Come see how food waste, soiled paper products, certified compostable bio-plastics, and other organics are transformed into dark, nutrient-rich, compost – an ideal soil amendment. If you’ve ever contributed organics to the Harrisonburg Community Compost Drop-off, this is where they end up. Black Bear Composting owner/ operator Eric Walter will lead us on a tour of his commercial-scale facility, demonstrating the different steps and methods used to turn organic waste into sweet-smelling, nourishing finished compost. You will also get to see his new compost compactor truck and screening equipment.

For directions, carpooling information, and other details, sign in at Better Impact and find this event on Sept 23 under the Opportunity Calendar.

As a bonus to learning all about this composting facility, you will get to stick your hands in the piles and feel the warmth of the bugs and bacteria processing the compost. Gloves provided. Even though the little critters outnumber us (more than a billion in every handful of stuff becoming compost), just remember, these microbes love to eat viruses for lunch.*

*Sally Brown, Letter To The BioCycle Community: COVID-19 And Organics Recycling, April 7, 2020

– Art Fovargue, Cohort VII, August 2021

Photo at top is from the BBC tour for HMNs held in October 2016. Photo by Art.