Blog

By Joshua Michael
Intern at Bootstrap Compost, Inc.

To help understand a little about why it is that I am interning at Bootstrap, it is only appropriate that I share with you some minute details about myself. My name is Joshua Michael, and I was born and raised in Chicago. I am 22 years old and I will be receiving my Bachelors in Environmental Studies & Anthropology in May of 2017. I attend Wheelock College in the Fenway area.

My goal, as an environmentalist with an interest in the Anthropocene, is to find unique perspectives on how we can reshape our understanding of waste management in order to benefit ourselves & more importantly the earth. I am very passionate about the environment, which may seem obvious due to the degree, and I am somewhat of a sustainability aficionado, self-proclaimed of course. I would be quite the pessimist, which there are more than enough of in the world of environmentalism, if I did not believe that we are still in a position to change our anthropological impacts on the environment. However, we must act with a sense of urgency as a general population – not just wait and hope for change from our world leaders.

All of this sums up why I ended up at Bootstrap. So what have I been up to? For the last month, I have been working hands on with almost all of the tasks that make Bootstrap function with relative ease. The first week at Bootstrap I was processing residential food scraps, which would later be driven to the farm to be composted. We even received some finished compost in return. Later in the week I would learn how to prep each of the buckets that we send back to customers (so if they looked a little lopsided, I apologize in advance!).

“Going to the farm, dumping food scraps, and watching the bulldozer pick up finished compost and dump it into the truck bed is a beautiful closed-loop process that all people should be exposed to.”

In my second week I would learn a great deal more about Bootstrap by getting to meet and spent time with cofounders Andy Brooks and Igor Kharitonenkov and marketing and customer service whiz Emma Brown. This is where I was introduced to the company’s humble beginnings in a tiny backyard in the JP area and how it eventually came to grow and scale to meet the needs of 2000+ clients!

The second week was exciting because, going about my work in the warehouse, I got to eavesdrop on a presentation Andy was giving to a tour group from MIT, and I learned about the chemical make-up of compost and the macro nutrients that help feed soil. I try my best to eavesdrop all things science. Additionally, I was able to work hands on with the compost that Bootstrap receives from their farms by unloading it from the pickup truck and then sifting it – making sure to take out large sticks and rocks so customers receive the best and fluffiest compost in return.

Honestly though, the most amazing experience so far has been seeing the process that the food scraps go through on the farm. Rocky Hill Farm in Saugus is one of the farms that Bootstrap teams up with. Along with Emma, I got to watch large industrial machines process the last bit of waste and catch anything that may not be compostable. Seeing this kind of a large-scale operation helped me realize that this is something that can be replicated on a much larger level all over the country and the world – and indeed should be in order to better the environment. Going to the farm, dumping food scraps, and watching the bulldozer pick up finished compost and dump it into the truck bed is a beautiful closed-loop process that all people should be exposed to. It was in that moment that I began to truly appreciate composting. The process itself warrants respect and notice because it is labor intensive – a tough job that requires a delicate nature to produce the best soil amendment for our soils. All while keeping food waste out of landfills.

That’s it for now. But stay tuned, I will continue with a regular posts until my internship is complete in early June! Thanks for reading! Until next time.