Composting will make its Flossmoor festival debut in June at the village’s Zip Code Party.
Also known as the 60422 event, Flossmoor’s “once-in-a-lifetime” celebration slated for June 4 (6/04/22) is to include a composting effort in partnership with Collective Resource Compost. In addition to hauling the compost, CRC will educate attendees about reducing landfill use, according to a report by Assistant Village Manager Jonathan Bogue.
“Our goal is to make this a zero-waste event,” Green Commissioner Mary Owen-Thomas said Monday, May 16, during a village board meeting. “Even if not every single thing goes into the composting bin, I still think this could be a success, and we’ll be part of hopefully a greater movement.”
Flossmoor’s Green Commission has been working toward more eco-friendly events, according to Bogue. Collective Resource Compost is a service that collects food waste and other compostable products from homes, businesses and other institutions, and takes them to a commercial composting site, Bogue wrote.
“We’re not going to be ahead of the curve composting,” Owen-Thomas said. “But I’m hoping that we can be a pioneer in the south suburbs.”
Part of the effort will be educating and encouraging vendors to use serviceware that is compostable. At the Zip Code Party, CRC, Homewood Disposal and the Green Commission will have three waste stations where volunteers will help with sorting of compost, landfill and recycling items, according to Bogue. The compostable scraps will be turned into a nutrient-rich soil addition, Bogue’s report adds.
“Once you compost, you can put that soil back into the ground, make better food, and it helps absorb carbon gasses, as well,” Owen-Thomas told the board. “We’re very excited about this.”
This marks the first time a Village-sponsored event has included composting of this kind, but it may just be a first step.
“We hope this is the start of how we have events in Flossmoor,” Owen-Thomas said. “That would be very exciting.
“I’ve always felt very strongly about being a good, responsible steward of our environment. Climate change is a big problem. We all want to do what we can in our small places in the world.”
