ROOM FOR A PONY

I have about thirty classmates. The course is eight three hour classes plus two or three day-long field trips, during which we hit several sites each. Here we are marching through Nature’s Needs, learning exactly what happens to all the yard debris and compost collected from Portland curbsides.

The green guy in the pictures is Operations Manager Jon Thomas, who does a great job of explaining how it all works. There’s a good, short video of the process at this link.

And just for the record, contrary to local fears about how bad this place would smell, I didn’t find it to be stinky at all, and I was standing right in it.

The other predicted nuisance was flocks of seagulls swarming the place to feast on the food scraps, getting in the way of the machinery. The coolest, most ecologically sound solution in the known world? Put the falcons in charge! Yes, it’s true. They have falcon patrol. See the video here.