Community Compost Giveaway: Spring 2007
RESULTS

The Community Compost Giveaway was held on March 22-24 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. For the most part, weather conditions were favorable all three days. There was a thunderstorm just before gate opened on Thursday morning, a brief drizzle on Friday morning, and partly sunny on Saturday afternoon. The compost given away was a mix of May/June ‘06 and September ’06 composted yard trimmings. Additional compost was on site, but was not intended for distribution (July/Aug ’06).  A total of 1,141 vehicles entered our facility over the three-day period (Table 1). At the end of the third day, we had 60 cubic yards or 39 tons of the giveaway compost pile leftover. We gave away 1,870 cubic yards of the 1,930 cubic yards of compost we had ready to give away. This translates to about 1,216 tons of compost distributed to the community over the three-day period.

Table 1: Number of new and repeat customers each day and the total over the three-day period.

	Thursday, Mar 22^nd	Friday, Mar 23^rd	Saturday, Mar 24^th	Total (all three days)
New Customers	195	197	222	614
Repeat Customers	90	176	261	527
Total (each day)	285	373	483	1,141

Well organized traffic queuing ensured safe access, egress, and loading for a variety of vehicle types.

A smaller pile of compost was created to accommodate self-loaders wanting smaller quantities.

The majority of vehicles through our facility were smaller trucks, which were loaded with the bobcat. Larger trucks were loaded with the 3-1/2 cubic yard bucket on the front end loader.