 Welcome to Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me today is Nate Ogson, founder of Kaimuki Compost Collective. Welcome, Nate. Hi, thank you so much for having me on, I appreciate it. Thank you for being on the show. So can you tell us how you started Kaimuki Compost Collective? Sure, so after graduating from UH, I ended up getting a chemistry degree. So I'm always thinking about how to make stuff. So long story short, I was figuring out how to make fertilizer out of food waste and then was looking at stuff like vertical farming, that kind of space. But then in the process, learned about the problem of food waste, which is a huge contributor to greenhouse gases because of the process of our waste, which is we throw in the trash, then it goes in the landfill, then it builds up all that gas in the landfill and it just goes into the atmosphere. So learned about composting through that and then found out that it's a business that people can do. And yeah. That's cool. So you never knew about composting before you started researching it after college? You didn't do it as a child or anything like that? No, didn't grow up as a child doing it. Didn't even, I've probably heard the term growing up here and there, but I really thought about it, but ran into it through my own independent research. But a lot of people do already grow up with it. Like most people who know about it kind of grew up doing it or something like that. And with composting, can you tell us what compost is? We have a good slide for that. Yeah, so compost is simply, you just think of it as really rich soil. All soil is made up of organic matter that has broken down over thousands, hundreds, tens of thousands of years, mixed in with rocks and stuff like that. But so composting just expedites that process of turning organic matter into soil. So with the compost, how is it that it expedites the process? Like how does it do that for people who don't know? So the process is expedited through microbiology. Some people, there's some variations, things like vermicomposting where worms will eat it and then their poop is the soil that you basically use to plant. But most compostings, especially at larger scales is through microbial composting. So what happens is all the microbes basically eat it and break it down and decompose it and it heats up really, really hot. It actually goes to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit and above. And through the process of microbial decomposition and heat, all the organic waste breaks down together over a period of time, between two months and a year, depending on the method composting or the scale of it. So I guess what you're talking about is hot composting. Is there a cold composting or no? There's kind of a cold composting. So cold composting would be, you have a pile of trees and mulch and sometimes you throw some food waste in the backyard every now and then you let it sit there. Hot composting is more of an active method where you are controlling the ingredients going in, controlling the moisture content. So all this stuff matters and you're turning it and you're aerating it and not letting it go anaerobic, meaning no presence of oxygen. So I guess to summarize all that, you're keeping a certain ratio of ingredients, you're keeping it moist, you're keeping it turned and aerated and all of those things are important to keeping the microbes that are doing the composting alive within the pile. So if you're keeping them alive and healthy, then you're able to make the process go faster rather than the backyard, you don't really have a managed system. So it's more, it's much slower. So with the backyard, because I have, as you know, I have a huge pile in my backyard with a bunch of crap in it, but all my garden waste and basically, how long do you think something like that is gonna take to break down? Is that gonna take a year, two years or because it's not in the right ratios? It's not, it's not hot, obviously. So it probably would take about, if you took all the waste that you have in the pile right now and you let it sit there without adding anything, touching it or anything, it probably take around a year, but that's not taking into account that you'd be adding more stuff into it. And then also the surface area matters. So if you have a pile of leaves that just sits there, that might take a couple of months, but if you have a pile of logs, that could take years. Because logs, they're so compact and tight and there's no surface area for everything to break down. So yeah, it's composting is much more than just throwing some organic waste into a pile and leaving it. It's a misconception, especially nowadays because people will be like, oh, compost, you can do it that way though. It's not, especially if it's at home and it's not a big deal and you just want a place to put your waste, it's not the end of the world that you have pile of green waste in your backyard. It's just if you want to have an efficient process where you're like, I'm producing compost that I'm going to be using all the time, it doesn't matter how you treat it. Now with the cold composting, what kind of organisms, you said microorganisms do the hot composting, but if you're just doing like the, put your garden waste in a pile, what kind of organisms are generally composting that? Is it like cockroaches, centipedes, or? So there is a classification of composters between microorganisms and macro-organisms. So the micro-organisms would be bacteria and fungus. Those are the main, and they each have different roles. So the bacteria are breaking down the more soft and nitrogen-y containing material or the green material and the fungus plays a bigger role in breaking down the more woody substances and like wood-like substances and stuff like that. And then the macro-organisms, I wouldn't say if you have a compost pile that's super active, it heats up. So a lot of people ask about rats and cockroaches and stuff. If you have an active compost pile or one of size, it'll get really hot. So it won't attract any pests because they can actually live in the pile. But for cold composting, you would have more of a threat of pests and vermin coming in because it's just, it's an environment for them to make their nests and possibly eat stuff. That's why if there's any kind of scaled operation going on where people are making it, farming or anything like that, you got to have hot composting going, you have to get tested at labs, stuff like that. Yeah, and so do you have a thermometer in your compost to make sure you reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit? That way you said it has to be 160 degrees Fahrenheit. We do have to thermometer and monitor and make sure that it is getting the proper temperatures to break down everything. Another important thing about why it has to be thermometered and the temperature has to be monitored because there is concerns for pathogens to grow. Because if you think about, say you took a trash can of food waste and you dumped it in your backyard and just let it sit there. If it's not being managed properly, all sorts of nasty microbial things could grow on there too, such as salmonella or E. coli, stuff like that. Those things are threats, but all of those microorganisms that are very bad, all are killed off in a scenario where composting is optimal for it's reaching the right temperatures and it's got the right ingredients within it. So when you're doing the composting, what is the most key thing to reaching the temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit? Is it the turning? Is it the ratio of carbon to nitrogen? What is the most important thing or is it a combination of the two? So it's in all of the above except for water as well. So the first thing is we have to think about, also I think of all the compost piles we have is pests. You have to feed it, you have to water it, you have to keep it nice. So when you turn it, you aerate it and keep it oxygenated or aerated. So all the microorganisms, they all have to breed. So when you turn it and you bring everything to the top that was within the middle, you bring all that air back into it. The second one would be water. It needs to be moist about a wet sponge, not drenched soaking sponge, but it needs to be wet. So I think of that like, yeah, you gotta drink. They're living beans just like everyone else. So they're breathing and they're drinking. And lastly, they're eating. So the ratio is between carbon and nitrogen. That's the main important ratio in composting. Specifically it is 30 to one, 25 to one carbon and nitrogen. That's at the atomic scale. So for every 30 carbon atoms, there's one nitrogen atom. And so the carbon containing material is important to source. So that is woody material. So that's dry plant waste, cardboard, paper, wood chips, mulch, anything that is derived from dry plant material. And then there is nitrogen containing material. So that would be stuff like manure, food waste, green waste, anything that you can think of as still being alive in a sense that is nitrogen containing material. So the carbon to nitrogen ratio of the cardboard is quite high, correct? So when you're using the cardboard, do you have to adjust with more nitrogen you're putting in if you're using the cardboard in your compost? So yes, you do have to adjust ratios and all that kind of stuff. So for instance, a piece of cardboard, the carbon to nitrogen ratio of this cardboard would be 400 to one versus, I don't know if the top of my head for like a pile of leaves or something, but let's say it's a 100 to one, 200 to one. It's probably somewhere in that area. So theoretically if you had 20 pounds of food waste that you wanted to compost, which is probably about 15 to one carbon to nitrogen ratio, you would probably need less cardboard than you would need leaves because there's technically more carbon content within the cardboard, if that makes sense. Yeah, so you guys are doing this every day at Kaimuki compost collective, correct? You have to adjust, depending on what your customers give you, you probably have to adjust what you're putting in your compost. Yes, we do do that. We used to, I used to do the math on it, like I'd weigh it and do the math and make sure it's all perfect. But at this point, we can kind of just eye it. You have a certain pile about this big, we've done it enough times to where we don't have to calculate it every single time. It can be rough estimates, but you can get very exact with it. I would think if you're doing huge, huge, huge operations, you might have to be a little bit more careful about it. But when it comes to doing the scale that we're doing, it's not, if it's heating up and everything's alive in it, it becomes compost. So how about turning? How often are you turning your compost? Do you have to do it a few times a day? You know, twice a day, once a day? People are busy, they want to do compost. That's always a barrier for me, for instance. Yeah. I would say ideally, in a perfect world, you could do it every day. I think you could, it would be, you can overturn it, but I doubt anyone's going to be overturning their compost. It's not like, it's not easy work. It's kind of labor laborious, but yeah. I think the, the twice state regulation for composting says that has to be at least once every five days. I think if you really want to have something efficient and working at its peak performance, that's probably about right. But I would say at least once a week is good for if you just have a backyard compost bin. Well, once a week, that's not so bad, actually. Yeah. If I can only convince my husband to do that. But anyway, so I'm wondering how big is your operation at Kaimuki Compost Collective? Is it located in Kaimuki itself? Or why the name Kaimuki Compost Collective is not located in Kaimuki? Yeah, so people have asked me about that. I didn't really think about it, to be honest, when I first started the company. But we started in Kaimuki picking up people's food waste in town or in Honolulu. Like from Kaimuki to say Makiki, and then it became Kaimuki to Pearl City, and then Kaimuki to Hawaii Kai. So we've kind of branched out, even started doing the east side. But we're able to do it because we don't have one centralized farm location. So myself and for other people in the space of composting on the island, which there's a bunch of other groups, such as like stable coastlines or full circle farm, people like them, everyone's kind of envisioning a decentralized system, which is very opposed to the traditional way of waste management, not just in Hawaii, but in the States and a lot of other countries, it's centralized. So we got that one landfill, we take everything there, and we just dump it there, and that's how it works. But when it comes to composting, it's a little bit more, you can be creative with it. So we partnered with little gardens, community gardens, small farms, bigger farms, and we kind of make deals, we go, well, this compost is for the farm or the garden, because that's ultimately the use of it. So for me, how it's compost is a matter if we can't get it to anyone. So we've kind of, all the sweet leads for going to Hawaii, we try to keep it somewhere in Hawaii, Hawaii, everyone in town, town, and so on and so forth. So are most of your customers big supermarkets? Are they individual people? What's your customer base like? So it started with just residential people, so we would give them a five gallon bucket, we still do this, five gallon bucket, and they put all their food waste in it, postman material, cardboard, and paper. We make sure to educate them on things that can and can't be composted. For instance, we don't take compostable plastic because it doesn't break down correctly, and if we're gonna be eating the products, I don't want compostable plastic in the soil that we're making personally. It doesn't compost, I've tried. Yeah, it doesn't compost too well. And a lot of the commercial facilities on the other places don't accept it either. At least we're thinking about it, but it's not great. We try to educate people on other things that are compostable, it's just cardboard. So I always give them the example, if you have a cereal box and you feel the outside of it, it's all smooth, that's actually plastic. So when in doubt, don't compost too. But to me, I think part of the mission of this is helping to educate people. So for instance, that cereal box, if we could start as a society acknowledging that that piece of cardboard is lined with plastic and people choose not to consume it, those companies will have to pivot to using something cardboard that is compostable so that they can retain their customers. So I think there is sort of a chain reaction effect to making composting something that everyone understands in every household. Trying to think about understanding, oh yes, who we're working with. So residential people, so we pick up once a week or once every other week, and then we have a drop-off service as well. We're making little 24-7 drop-off stations that you can do at any time. We're trying to put them around Honolulu and we'll have empty buckets for people. They can drop off the 31, take thing one. So we're doing that. We also started working with some restaurants and some condos and apartment buildings. So we scaled up to larger apartment buildings and condos. So instead of getting that one person in the apartment, we can get everyone in the apartment and we kind of work with HOAs, property managers. We've even had people within apartment buildings kind of band together and kind of split up. Yeah, it's still really early in the space, but it's definitely the way everything is going. So it's starting to be part of something that's new and developing. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering as an individual person, is it possible to purchase your compost or is it just going to farms right now? So for people who work with us in terms of our clients, if they ask for compost, we give it to them in five gallon buckets or if they want more, we'll give them basically as much as they want. If they ask for a truckload, we need a truckload by tomorrow. I don't think we could do that because we have a good amount of compost. We couldn't just be giving away massive amounts. Plus there's a lot of transport and labor that goes on with that, like filling the truck up, bringing it to someone, emptying the truck. It's a lot of work, but people want a couple buckets of compost. We'll always give it to them. But the rest of it just goes to the farms and gardens. That's cool. I mean, I have these machines because I only do vermicomposting because it's easy. And so I have these machines and I don't know if you know anything about these machines, but I have one from Lomi and another one from Vitamix. Have you heard of them? One from where? Lomi? Oh, Lomi, okay. Yeah, another one from Vitamix. Okay. Yeah, so those kind of dehydrate the waste, right? And then what do you do with it then? I put it, like I just sprinkle it in my garden somewhere. Okay. And then, because it's with the old dirt, so I figure it's kind of like, you know, more nutrient-rich, nitrogen-rich stuff with like, you know, stuff that is not rich in nutrients anymore. So I figure it must help a little bit, but I don't really know. You know, obviously it's not, you know, you don't have to put in any ratio to put it there, but you know, when you vermicompost, you can't put lemons in, like there's things you can't put in. So this way I can put all my lemons and all the stuff that, you know, peels, I can put it all in there and just be like a lazy composter. I always tell people the best way, the best waste management is just doing it what you can at home. So the people are composting on their own and you know, they don't have to work with our group and it would be compost-reflective and that's the best, that'll always be the best option for everyone. But you know, a lot of people are in apartments, a lot of people don't have time to do that kind of stuff. So it's just, it's not ideal. No, it's never gonna be everyone's gonna be managing their own waste, but people who can or people who know about it, they do it, it's always good. Yeah, I mean, it makes such a difference. So are there, I don't know if you wanna reveal some of your companies or restaurants you work with, but I mean, I think maybe people would be interested in supporting people who are actually composting at their restaurant or their corporation. So I don't know if that's something that you can do. I'll shout out the first restaurant that we ever started working with. We actually haven't been back recently, but we kind of were doing it for free for them because it was our first one and we were testing how it worked to do composting at scale. But it's a peace cafe on King Street. Yeah, shout out to them. They were the first people that we worked with that was outside of residential composting. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I mean, definitely I was just there the other day. So I feel really good about that. Yeah, I agree. I think because, yeah, I mean, because it's, I don't, I mean, I think with hot composting, you can't put in any animal bones and like animal products in there. Basically, I don't think they use that. So it must be pretty, they can just throw everything in. So I love restaurants that might have to separate out. So that's great. And then I know you had a little bit of information on organic in your slides. Can you talk a little bit about that, like USD organic, what that means, you know, all that. Sure. So back to my academic background, I got a chemistry degree. So kind of nitpicking some definitions or, you know, semantics. But the word organic means in science something that comes from life. So organic kind of was taken by food industry to mean something like, oh, naturally raised animals or food produced, crops produced without pesticides and GMO stuff like that. That's not what organic means. Organic just means like life-based carbon-based materials. So cardboard is organic, food, all food is organic technically. Anything that you can compost is organic. Yeah, so whenever I write proposals or business plans or talk to people about clients, especially about what we can take to compost, I always refer to it as organic waste because saying it's compost, like over-collecting compost, compost is the end product of composting, which is the soil. So taking a trash can of food waste, isn't like, oh, I'm gonna take your compost. I'm gonna take your organic material and then we're gonna compost it into compost. So how many people do you have in your operation doing all this, you know, like you said before, it's very labor-intensive. So you must have a couple people working for you that you work with, you know, and then picking it up, you got it, you know, do you have specific people who pick it up? Starting out, it was just me doing everything. The pickups, composting, I had a lot of friends help and I still do, but we've kind of started going to the point where we have to start hiring and thinking about acquiring more assets, just vehicles and trailers, something that we already have got some, but we're definitely at the point where we're starting to acquire things like that, hire people because it's something that's coming. It's really exciting to be a part of it and exciting that people care about it and yeah. I wanna look at your website. Yeah, it's a great website. It talks about different composting information. Like you had stuff about the microorganisms in the compost, which I thought was very interesting and then there was an interesting video about McDonald's and how they're installing these cameras. So when someone dumps something that's not supposed to go in a dumpster, it was the people right away. So there were some interesting things and there's also information about subscribing to your service and, you know, why some, you know, also big restaurants like commercial industries wanna subscribe to your service. I did like the website a lot. Thank you. I'm wondering what's the next step for you? Are you looking for more farms or are you going to expand to the west side, north shore? We're always looking for new farms and locations to compost. Like I said, decentralization is the most important thing. We can kind of do one farm or piece of land or plot for every couple of larger scale deals. Like for instance, you could get every one or two restaurants space to one farm and that would probably be enough compost for what they were doing if it was a smaller scale. We were definitely focused on working with larger groups such as apartments and condos. And we found a lot of corporate companies reach out to us too. Kind of still in talks with them so probably can't name them but people that everyone knows. So it's really exciting. It seems like everyone's kind of dipping their toe into it right now and seeing what happens. So it's not quite there yet but it feels like it's something that will just be common knowledge and common practice in the next four or five years which is the right thing to do. So it's exciting. Yeah, no, that's awesome. I mean, how is your operation I guess different from the Honolulu County's operation? Don't they have like a pickup? I mean, I guess part of the issue was that they don't even pick up all the addresses and that's a huge problem. Like our street, they want to pick up food waste for our street, you know? Right. So the way the city and county does it they just have the grain bins and it's only for certain types of residences mostly homes. Like you said, they don't even do most of them. The city and county said by 2024 which I heard it's gonna be moved forward like 2025, 226 that they're gonna start doing food waste or organic waste collection statewide but the problem with Hawaii is that there's no infrastructure behind it. So it'll just be people with green bins can put their food waste in it and that's probably mostly the extent of it would be taken to Hawaiian earth products or something like that but that would be the extent of saying that Hawaii compost. I think it's definitely gonna be up to private groups nonprofits, for-profit businesses who are gonna pioneer it in a way that makes sense because I just don't think the state has enough resources to make it something happen soon. Yeah, I think you're taking a great step forward with your company and it's just, it's great that somebody is thinking about this. So we're out of time but we have to wrap it up. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Planet on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking with Pete Hawson of the Kaibuki Compost Collective. Thanks to Michael, our broadcast engineer and the rest of Think Tech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you in two weeks for more of Healthy Planet on Think Tech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. My guests will be Kaimali Stanek and Christian Decavado and we will be talking about eco-friendly landscaping. If you have ideas for the show or questions for my future show guests, please contact me at healthyplanetthinktech.com. Check out my website at gracinghawai.com or Instagram at Graceful Living 365 for more information on my projects and cleaning future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill, aloha everyone.