California mandatory, organic waste recycling law established through Assembly Bill (AB) 1826 went into effect last year. Elk Grove鈥檚 Todo Un Poco restaurant and the local Stone Lake Farms formed a partnership that follows this law.
Under AB 1826, businesses, government agencies and multi-family dwellings must repurpose or recycle their organic waste. Included in this requirement are restaurants, stores, schools, hospitals, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and residential complexes with five or more units that generate a specific amount of organic waste.
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), which promotes the importance of reducing waste, notes that the overall purpose of AB 1826 is to 鈥渞educe greenhouse gas emissions by diverting commercial organic waste from landfills, and transforming it into reusable products through聽composting, anaerobic digestion or incineration.鈥�
CalRecycle also states that 15 percent of America鈥檚 food waste could annually feed more than 25 million people. Cliff Wilcox, owner of Stone Lake Farms, said that his partnership with Todo Un Poco allows his business to be more productive, especially during the wintertime when it sometimes experiences a shortage of greens for its chickens.
鈥淲e get the stuff a couple of times a week from Todo Un Poco and feed it to the chickens, and, of course, (the chickens) turn it into eggs and compost,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e use the potting soil to start our own plants. We use that to plant out in the field.
鈥淚n the summertime, Todo Un Poco (purchases) the tomatoes, cucumbers and stuff that鈥檚 grown in the dirt that鈥檚 enriched by the recycled veggies.鈥�
Wilcox added that his chickens roam freely around his property. 鈥淥ur chickens are not stuck in cages,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey run sort of free and they really enjoy getting the vegetable scraps from Todo Un Poco to augment their diet.鈥�
After experiencing a loss of about 22 chickens due to flooding this winter, Stone Lake Farms has about 28 chickens. However, Wilcox said he plans to double that amount this summer.
He mentioned that he also obtains 鈥減ond scum鈥� from manmade ponds in the Laguna area. 鈥淭hey take out the algae that grows in those ponds and I get some of that from one of the distributors and that goes back into the soil, too,鈥� Wilcox said.
Marie Mertz, owner of Todo Un Poco, said that her current efforts to assist Stone Lake Farms reminds her of a memory of her youth. 鈥淚 used to visit the farm of my grandmother and go and pick up veggies,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen one tomato was bad, there were chickens just running around; so I would feed (it) to the chickens. I always believed that the environment gives you food, so you have to give back.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a cycle you cannot break, and I think with all the industrialization, we forgot. You walk away from that beginning. You start seeing about this concept with 鈥榝arm-to-fork.鈥� People think it鈥檚 new. But it鈥檚 nothing new.鈥�
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