Last Saturday, February 22, we had a great turn out at Salomon Farm Park for an event that combined a session of yoga and a compost workshop. Both practices are about cultivating mindfulness about your body/self and your impact on the world. We look forward to future collaborations with Kylee Hays of Living Yoga for more yoga and compost events.
Many thanks to Kellie Adkins, from Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation, for hosting the event and for taking these photos.
There was a great turn out on Saturday morning, February 8, for the screening of “The Plastic Problem” and a follow up discussion. We highly recommend watching the documentary if you get a chance. It is a harrowing story about how plastic has spread to every place on our planet from the bottom of the sea, miles down, to giant gyres in the world’s oceans. We need dramatic action to eliminate plastic. This documentary prepares you to understand what an epic task this will be.
Watching “The Plastic Problem”
Petro-Subjectivity: oil permeates all aspects of our lives and our sense of self
Jodi Leamon from Allen County Department of Environmental Management talking about the great work they do
New terms for how badly we have impacted the planet, e.g. Plastisphere
Dirt Wain is participating in a brief panel discussion after the screening of this new documentary. We are discussing local efforts to combat plastic proliferation and waste in our area. This issue effects everyone and becoming more aware of the problems plastic pose to our health and the health of the environment is an important first step!
This free event is possible through a partnership between Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation, Dirt Wain, and Living Yoga LLC.
This event is for ages 16+. The program is free, but space is limited to 30 people and pre-registration is required. Register at fortwayneparks.org or by calling 260.427.6000 and use code 153600.
For this free program Living Yoga LLC will kick us off with a gentle yoga class that is appropriate for all levels, beginner to advance. There will also be an option to participate while seated in a chair if preferred. Please bring your own yoga mat.
Immediately following yoga Dirt Wain will offer a short presentation on the basics of composting. Learn the dos and don’ts of composting, get all your questions answered, and learn how Dirt Wain and Salomon Farm Park have teamed up to do the dirty work of composting for residents!
Both yoga and earth care ask us to be observant participants in the world around us, to be mindful of how we are living and our impact on the world. Are you overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing to be a good steward to the earth and your fellow humans? Reducing our waste, including food waste being sent to landfills, is a good place to start but home composting can feel overwhelming to many. Good news! Dirt Wain, a local composting initiative, removes many of the obstacles. In yoga we create space in the mind and body and begin to experience our connection to everything around us.
Local freelance writer, Tim Zink, wrote an article for Input Fort Wayne about our efforts to build community-scale compost solutions for various individuals, groups, and businesses in the area. The online magazine covers a lot of great things that are happening in Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana. Momentum is building in many areas, not just in the interest in composting.
We are grateful for the support; thanks, Tim and Input!
Composting has been part of Brett Bloom’s life ever since he got his start as a young boy at his grandparents’ garden.
“Often, my grandparents would have me bury my table scraps in their kitchen garden in the summer,” Bloom says. “I really loved doing that, and there was no word for it. We were just sort of returning the nutrients to the land.”
Little did he know at the time, but he was composting—recycling organic materials into the soil rather than sending them to the landfill where they contribute to the greenhouse gas, methane.
Dirt Wain is donating our services by collecting food scraps and compostable dinnerware from the event. We are excited to provide support for Save Maumee as they have tirelessly worked to remove invasive trees, and plant native trees, along the Maumee river.
The fundraiser is at the Freemason’s Hall, a historic building completed in 1923, located at 216 E. Washington Blvd. in downtown Fort Wayne.
Dirt Wain is honored to have received an award from the Allen County Department of Environmental Management. We couldn’t be more thrilled about the recognition of our work, especially since we are such a new business. ACDEM has been supportive of our work from the start. They are incredible advocates for sustainable practices.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Allen County Sustainability Awards! We appreciate you taking the extra steps to help preserve natural resources in our community for future generations. 🏆 ♻️
The winners in each category:
🏆 Reduce: Larry Graf, volunteer food rescuer with the Food Rescue US – Fort Wayne (a program of Food Rescue US). Larry has put in many hours meeting with donors and recipients to establish relationships as well as driving many deliveries of good food that would have otherwise gone to landfill.
🏆 Reuse: Grassroots Baby has made many families more aware of and given access to reusable products instead of disposables. Nominations from grateful parents said they were able to reduce their child’s environmental footprint because of this store.
🏆 Recycle: Samantha Vance, founder of Buddy Benches at age 9, continues to inspire and empower kids to save plastic caps, recycle them into benches, and be kind to those who need a friend. Buddy Benches have encouraged recycling of thousands of pounds of plastic.
🏆 Compost: Dirt Wain is a new business that converts food scraps to nutrient-rich compost. It includes drop-off and pick-up services for residents and businesses in several zip codes. This model keeps food scraps from the landfill where they produce methane gas, and instead creates a valuable soil amendment.
🏆 Combination: Pembroke Bakery & Cafe takes great care to reduce waste in all ways possible. They are mindful of upstream sources for their products, reusable wares are provided for eating in, and carryout items are recyclable or compostable. They recycle or compost almost everything and produce little trash.
We are happy to see this article about local businesses and how they approach dealing with the food scraps they generate. It mentions Dirt Wain and the work we are doing with the Health Food Shoppe to reduce their impact. We gather about 800 pounds of food scraps a month there. In one year, this collaboration will divert nearly 5 tons of food scraps from the landfill to our compost piles.
We asked one of our subscribers—to our drop off service at Salomon Farm Park—if her children were as enthusiastic about composting several weeks after they had started. They were really excited when they started and we wanted to know if this continued. Here is what she replied:
Everyone loves it. They race to the bucket after dinner and always fight over who gets to get out of the car to drop the bucket off!
