"At the end of the day, this is the biggest difference a family could make."

Farm-to-table.

It's our beloved, well-worn phrase, the shibboleth of local food movements. Shake the hand that feeds you, Michael Pollan says.

Their farm, your table.

Yet, within several minutes of talking with Michael Ryan and Norm Lavoie, as we stood near heaping piles of compost, we realized, jarringly - the term was incomplete.

"Farm-to-table is not the full story," Michael said.

It's an unfinished term pointing to an unfinished story. There's a word missing. Food continues its journey long after it reaches our table, often headed to a place it doesn't belong.

The landfill.

"Farm-to-table-to-landfill," he continued. "It's a linear story."

Gulp, he's right. We can have the most hyper-local meal possible, having passionately held the hands of all involved, yet if our food waste simply goes into the trash can, then the story ends. Rather abruptly.

Suddenly, it's clear: the current farm-to-table journey is indeed a straight line path. Farm ... to ... table ... to ... landfill.

It's a linear story.

For Norm, 37, and Michael, 42, turning this line into a circle has become paramount. They've devoted their careers to this.

"Farm-to-table can be a full circle," Michael said.

Welcome to NewTerra Compost.

"We could divert it all."

On the Monday after Thanksgiving 2020, Michael and Norm launched their composting company - NewTerra - by introducing the missing link: composting food waste back into soil. The line turns into a circle. The system is made whole.

Farm.

To.

Table.

To.

Soil.

A full circle.

With NewTerra, the two are attempting - and, in many ways, succeeding - what's never been done here.

Their goal: a massive reduction in regional waste.

"Food waste is the largest component of landfill waste," said Michael.

Food waste accounts for one-quarter of all municipal waste in the US, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Another quarter? Paper, cardboard and yard waste.

This means that half - yes, half! - of all we toss, pitch and dump doesn't have to become waste.

"We could divert it all," said Michael. "Over half of what we are sending to the landfills could be reversed as beneficial."

Let that sink in.

Half of all our trash doesn't have to be ... trash.

"We could divert it all."

Other cities mandate composting. It's doubtful that will happen here, but as many new folks migrate to Chattanooga, they bring with them a mindset and habits: oh yeah, this was normal where we came from.

In restaurants? Yep. Businesses? Of course. Governments? Obviously.

So, on 20 leased acres in the foothills of north Georgia, Michael and partner Norm have diverted - literally - tons of material.

"We just hit 4 million pounds - 4,293,750 - since December of 2020," Michael said.

They average around 24,000 pounds a week, yet the amount remains a widow's mite.

"A percentage of a percentage of a percentage of what's out there," said Michael.

The state of Tennessee hasn't published a solid needs waste assessment since 2009. Michael and Norm say there are three regional landfills operating. (Food as a Verb will visit the Birchwood landfill in early 2025.)

"Those dumps are filling," said Norm. "Between the three, we are running out of time."

According to the city of Chattanooga, the 50-acre Birchwood Class I landfill has approximately five years remaining.

So, when our nearby landfills reach capacity, it means we truck our waste farther away. Costs go up. Taxes, too.

"Landfilling costs are around $30 a ton," said Michael. "Our friends in Pennsylvania are paying $120 a ton."

"People need to invest now. What is cheaper now will not be cheaper later."

But, this story's getting ahead of itself.

Let's go back to the best part.

The beauty of it all.

"What happens when we can't get good soil?"

When we arrive at NewTerra's 20-acres in Wildwood, Georgia, the sun is rising over Lookout Mountain. It's a gorgeous, wool-sweater kind of morning.

"Come on over here," Norm said. "You can watch the steam coming off the compost."

The steam rises off the piles like some King Arthurian lake. One has the sense of standing before something vastly complex, wholesome and magical: a honeybee hive, a symphony at its apex, Josh Allen in the huddle.

How many leftover casseroles, spoiled yogurt, apple cores and pizza crusts are here, being altered and changed into soil for next season's planting? And future harvests, family incomes, big-hearted meals?

It is the work poets and priests extol: the transformation of dross into gold.

"Does it smell to you?" asked Michael.

It smells like goodness.

Here's the lay of the land.

Each day, four New Terra full-time employees pick up 64-gallon bins from restaurants and businesses and five-gallon curbside bins from homeowners.

They compost everything.

Chicken bones, cheese rinds, paper plates, Twinkies, leftover mac and cheese, banana peels, corn husks, whole pumpkins, Domino's and the boxes it came in, oatmeal, lemon rinds, stale Cheerios.

"If you can eat it, we can compost it," Michael said.

(New Terra also offers recycling and compostable products: utensils, plates, cups.)

After drivers unload, the material is tractor'ed over to the first set of piles where it cooks in large rows, which act like ovens, as, inside, carbon and nitrogen and microorganisms get busy.

"For them to do their job, they need moisture and oxygen," said Norm.

Under each pile, there are PVC pipes with holes; each hour, air is pumped through the pipes to aerate the piles. NewTerra mixes in wood chips with the food waste.

"Wood chips act like a blanket," Norm said. "We mix it up like a big salad."

Within each pile, temps hover around 130 to 140 degrees. The temps don't break down the food, but rather act as an indicator of the magic happening inside.

They plunge a tall thermometer into the pile; the needle moves like the dash on an Indy car.

Within seconds: 139 degrees.

"You could bake potatoes in the pile," Michael said.

Screens help filter out accidental trash. NewTerra actively cooks their compost piles for 30 days, then cures for another 60.

Then, it's returned as composted soil to regional farmers or gardeners; when folks sign up for residential service, they also receive bags of annual compost.

The circle is complete.

We make and manufacture many things in this region. But who's making soil?

"What happens when we can’t get good soil?" Michael asks.

I Have an Idea ...

Michael grew up in Dade County, detouring from the family-owned funeral home and into two decades of food service industry: El Meson, Boathouse, Terminal, Sugar's before launching The Square Meal in Trenton.

All the while, he saw the waste stream - normalized and enormous - flowing in and out of kitchens and restaurants.

"The process starts in the purchasing of restaurant. What you bring in front goes out the back," he said.

In the summer of 2019, Norm - a member of the US Army National Guard - was returning home from deployment in Poland.

He returns home, when Michael - an old friend - has this idea stewing and cooking. Norm gets off the plane, hugs his way through a welcome home party before Michael says the four most stirring words any man can speak.

I have an idea.

Soon, they found themselves at Sidetrack in Hixson for dinner.

"Norm and I ended up at the end of the table, just huddled down," remembered Michael.

NewTerra was born.

"For an entire summer during the pandemic, we did backyard trials, picking up [food waste and scraps] from friends and neighbors for free," Michael said.

The early days were rough. They'd open the tailgate of Norm's Tacoma, walking uphill - both ways, it seemed - to his backyard. That year, they composted 3,000 pounds, working out the kinks and wrinkles.

Then, December 2020: they leased land, drove routes themselves, shook hands with early clients - you know, the usual generous suspects like Niedlov's and Lupi's - who signed on as founding members.

"The first time we came back with the very first load," Norm began, "It was 30-something degrees and raining and in the mud."

There in the winter waste, the doubt crept in.

What are we doing? What have we done?

The answer?

Creating Chattanooga's only-locally-based composting service in the wild hope of changing the world, restoring the soil and reducing government taxes.

Today, New Terra has 500 residential customers and 100 or so commercial accounts. Michael shared a partial list of customers, including businesses, restaurants and schools.

It's a remarkable list, yet, imagined if it tripled, then, tripled again, to reflect the larger demographics.

"160,000 people in the city," Michael said, "and over 9,000 businesses in Hamilton County."

For all the work NewTerra's doing, there is so much more to be done.

Small restaurants collect 100s of pounds of waste per week; nine Food City locations collect an awful lot more.

Norm and Michael think about it wherever they go. At birthday parties, they've been known to dig through the trash, sorting for compost.

Yet, in a world of exhausting climate fatigue, this makes a clear, immediate and effective difference.

"That is why this is refreshing," said Michael. "This is something we can control.

"At the end of the day, this is the biggest difference a family could make."

So, what's possible?

Michael just traveled to Denver, where the city has "430 acres of compost with semi-trucks dumping."

Chattanooga isn't Denver, but we are tracking to become North America's first National Park City.

"How are we going to be a National Park City when, every time we have an event, there are dumpsters full of trash?" Michael said.

How about Ironman? All our road races, convention center events, festivals? Imagine a 50% reduction in waste.

"It’s all education," he said. "Schools need to be doing this. We don't have Pledge of Allegiance Week. No, you do it every day."

The steam continues to rise. The compost continues to cook. The line bends towards a circle.

Each day, the NewTerra team does its work; so much of this depends on the rest of us.

Businesses. Restaurants. Families. Schools. Governments.

"There are other states mandating this. We've talked to the city until we're blue in the face," said Michael. "Every time I see [Chattanooga mayor] Tim Kelly, 'Hey, we're ready.'"

"All Norm and I do is think about compost. Give us a budget and we can do this."

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.