Paul Bass Photo
Schandra Madha on the hot seat at Common Ground.
One of New Haven’s coolest places was also one of its hottest Thursday morning.
Most outdoor thermometers in town were reading in the 20s. The needle on Schandra Madha’s outdoor thermometer crept eight times as high.
Madha was standing atop one of the steaming compost piles at environment-themed Common Ground High School’s urban farm off Springside Avenue in the shadow of West Rock.
The day before she and four Common Ground students involved in the Green Jobs Corps had helped mix a fresh 500 pounds of leftover food scraps into the pile. One hundred twenty of those pounds came from the school cafeteria. Another 300 came from the bicycle-powered Peels & Wheels home-pickup composting operation.
Thursday morning, Madha, Common Ground’s compost program coordinator, stuck the thermometer two feet deep into the mound below her elevated feet.
“At the center of the pile we have 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is great: 131 is our goal,” she said during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
“That temperature tells us that we are doing everything we need to be doing to make sure the microorganisms have the food, air and water they need to break down all this food waste.”
She and the students created the organic furnace below her feet by mixing the food scrap “greens” like corn cobs and orange rinds with twice as much “brown”: wood chips, animal muck, farm waste, compostable cups from events.
Private landscapers donate the wood chips to save money in a “win-win” deal. They save on the costs of private disposal. Common Ground gets needed pile components.
Once the pile disintegrates into newly rich soil, it will help the farmers grow new vegetables — including for Common Ground’s cafeteria and for Common Ground student families, completing a virtuous circle that keeps both the environment and human beings healthy and going strong.
The extra-high temperature allowed Common Ground to accept sausage links in this pile as well as dairy. Don’t do that at home, Madha warned: Backyard piles don’t generate enough heat to break down meat or cheese.
Madha, who’s 32, began her job last summer. She spends two hours with the students every Wednesday adding to the pile. They have rescued more than 40,000 pounds of waste that can now help generate new food rather than add to polluting landfills or trash processing facilities.
“Once you start composting, it sucks you in. You get really passionate about it,” she said. (Fact check: That’s true.) “If we care about where our waste goes as much as what we put in our bodies,” the planet will shift in a more sustainable direction.
After checking on the pile, Madha planned to devote the afternoon to helping get out the word for the upcoming 15th annual Rock to Rock community bike event — another way New Haveners are building community and a better world at the same time.
You can watch the full conversation with Schandra Madha on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHHFM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program in the video above.
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Click here and see below for previous “Word on the Street” episodes and write-ups.
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