BARRIERS TO BUILDING A CULTURE OF COMPOSTING Barriers always exist when trying to implement culture change, and as humans, we are quick to spot those barriers. In our morning session we made sure to allow space for people to talk about barriers to implementing composting education, infrastructure, and policy.
EDUCATION barriers broke down into categories ranging from a very basic lack of understanding of what compost is to how to use compost to a lack of awareness of or access to programs . Surprisingly there were few comments about how to compost although there may be a “disconnect between [the] desire to compost and [an] understanding of [how composting] work[s ]." One participant summed all this up as a “lack of generational knowledge around composting. Long time city dwellers don't know how to compost and thus don't pass down to their kids.” A lack of understanding about why we should compost was also seen as a barrier because if people don’t understand "What's in it for me? Why should I bother?" they won’t be receptive to participating in composting programs nor in using compost. Other categories include lack of awareness about the value of compost, misperceptions, and fear by non- composters that composting is smelly and gross, mistrust that composting initiatives collecting food scraps are actually being composted, and confusion about what to compost. The fact that some specific target audiences such as kids, legislators, landscape companies, and under-served communities were not being reached was identified as a barrier to adoption. Funding and a lack of resources are persistent barriers to classroom education while in terms of practical experience “individual schools have no incentives to divert waste." A list of comments on Barriers to Education are displayed in Table 1 in Appendix 1. INFRASTRUCTURE barriers focused heavily on the economics of composting. Using compost was noted as costly for homeowners and gardeners as there are "hauling costs for home gardener." Additional costs are incurred when participating in composting by individuals and business owners as “ pickup programs [are] not affordable to all" and there is an “additional cost to business owners to add to compost to [their] waste contract and incorporate into operations." Compost processors also face cost issues as "compost facilities are expensive to run and are so full w/ product in IL" indicating a market imbalance between supply and demand and the likelihood that there is a "lack of end markets for finished compost (economic viability-closing the loop)" and a lack of understanding about the value of compost and composting. Supply quality issues impact demand for compost. For example, if the "quality of finished product (is) unknown or inconsistent", is contaminated, or even just perceived as contaminated, then consumers will be reluctant to purchase or use compost because they believe there is a " lack of high-quality compost from food scraps; [due to] too much contamination from post-consumer [waste].” Larger supply chain issues that need solutions include
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