Unearthing The Power Of Organics: Composting Insights With Clinton Sander
From neglected waste to a powerful resource for thriving communities, discover how we can harness composting to cultivate a greener future. Join Christine Yeager as she engages in a compelling conversation with Clinton Sander, Marketing Manager at A1 Organics, Colorado's largest commercial compost manufacturer. They delve into the critical importance of diverting hundreds of thousands of tons of organic waste from landfills annually, transforming it into nutrient-rich finished compost. This episode unveils the profound impact of emphasizing the end-use value of compost for soil health, water retention, and carbon sequestration, while also confronting the persistent challenges of contamination. Learn how consistent, transparent sustainability campaigns and a shift in community perception are essential to truly unlock the full potential of organics recycling and build healthier, more resilient environments.
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Unearthing The Power Of Organics: Composting Insights With Clinton Sander
I’m here with Clinton Sander. Thank you so much for being here. I’m super excited for this discussion. I’ve said many times on the show that composting is my favorite form of the circular economy, so I’m super excited to dive into that topic. Clinton and I met through Recycle Colorado, which is a nonprofit in the Colorado area but, Clinton, your name pops up a lot. You’re doing a ton around in Colorado and for composting in general.
Clinton is the Marketing Manager at A1 Organics and has extensive experience in retail, natural foods marketing, including creating brand campaigns, innovative merchandising techniques and digital marketing. You’re also deeply involved in the community. You're focused on regenerative practices, community engagement and you sit on quite a few boards. You serve on the Colorado Producer Responsibility Advisory Board representing the compost manufacturing sector.
You’re also the co-chair of the Market Development Committee for the US Composting Council, and then on the Board of Directors for Recycle Colorado where we met and also part of the Colorado Composting Council, where we’ve been working together and Sustainability Advisor for eco products, which is a compostable packaging manufacturer.
I’m super excited to dive in with you because not only are you super involved in all of these things but you’re also very approachable when it comes to composting and talking about organics. I’ve only known you for a little while and you’ve already taught me a lot. It’s been welcoming into the Recycle Colorado community. Thank you for being on the show.
You’re welcome. I’m excited. This is going to be fun.
Living With Intention: Clinton Sander's Personal & Professional Drive
As everyone knows, we like to start with I do a bit of the bio but we want to hear from you a little about who Clinton is and how you live with intention.
My intention lies within my children. I do have three children now. I love exposing them to intention through examples, either organic diversion using finished compost, taking them to experiences that change their mind and appearance to what’s going on in the world. That’s what my intention lies in, it’s because I want them to be better people. I want them to have empathy and see the big picture on what’s going on out in the world. I can’t take full credit for this. My wonderful wife is also helpful in that department.
On a personal level, that’s where a lot of my intention lies now but on a professional level, like examples and we’ll talk about this more, I believe. If you’re trying to show someone the beneficial use of finished compost. You can talk and talk and tell and tell and show them reports and show them papers. A picture is 1,000 words, a video is a million words and if you show them proof is in the pudding and what’s happening and literally the potential that the regrowth of turf or the rebuilding up of the soil. That’s more powerful than anything.
It’s part of the reason why I love to give tours. As you said, I’d like to be approachable. On tours, I like to show people what’s going on, bring them out to the composting sites, show them contamination, the process, and the heat that’s generated from microorganisms in the process. That is the most powerful way to create a difference and show some change. I hope that helps.
Unpacking Composting & The Organic Recycling Universe
That’s great. This tied theme of showing your children an expanded world and also using those same ideals and showing others the value and benefit of composting is great. I love it. The next one, composting. We haven’t talked a ton about it on the show except for when I always talk about how great it is. In the spirit of being approachable, I want to dive into a little bit of the vocabulary of composting because I have used it incorrectly. Can you share with us a little bit about the life cycle of organics and compost? What role is A1 Organics, where you work, playing in that in Denver?
A quick history. A1 Organics is the largest commercial compost manufacturer in the State of Colorado. You can see behind me or at least your readers can’t, but the ones watching this can. We process around 525,000 tons of organics annually. What is that? That is a lot of organic material. We estimated around 62% of the diverted organics in the State of Colorado. It’s a lot of material. We have a long way to go because Colorado needs to do a lot better when it comes to diversion of organic matter. My job for A1 Organics, who’s been around for many years and it’s a family-owned business. I came on board and I dove right in. I’ve loved it ever since.
This goes back to your intent question. Whatever I’m doing as a professional in the industry or whatever my job’s related to. I have to have a goal. I have to have something that I’m passionate about or I’ll pull out and go do something else. Being able to divert organics and then build healthy soils, that’s pretty exciting. I love it. As the marketing manager or communications director, however, you want to say this because we all wear many hats at A1 Organics. I’m continually trying to make sure people understand how the system works and what I mean by the system is organics recycling.
Organic recycling is the umbrella over our industry's organic recycling. Organics is a broad term for something that was once living. That could be food scraps, yard trimmings, beer, some kind of fats, oil or grease, yogurt, a log, a tree branch, a flower, or the inside of an animal’s body like intestines. Again, these are all organic materials that can be diverted to a composting operation like A1 Organics to be processed through a technology called Composting.
Composting is a type of technology for breaking down organics. Now, composting is more traditional, like what you think in your mind. You build up a large pile. You put a bunch of different organics in there. You put a little bit of water and a little bit of hair. You get some temperature going. Microbes are happy. They break it down, but there’s also other organics recycling systems and technologies like what we call Anaerobic digestion, which is using a similar idea looking together a mixture of organics and a process that can create some gas that’s captured then the net gas can be used as a renewable natural fuel.
Organics recycling is the overall diversion of keeping organics out of landfills and using them for beneficial use. Remember, I said composting is more of the traditional what we call like a windrow and that breaks down over time and that creates compost. Compost is a soil amendment. Compost is this nutrient dense material that comes from the breaking down of organics. That compost is what we put back into the soil and that is a soil amendment. It’s going to help provide the benefit.
Organic recycling is about overall diversion, keeping organics out of landfills and using them beneficially.
A great example where this confusion can lie is, you say, “I’m going to go grab my compost. I’m going to put it in my compost bin and then I’m going to send it to the compost manufacturer.” That’s confusing across the board. This is where I get passionate. You’re diluting the finished product, which is compost because that’s what’s made from your diversion and your efforts to keep it in the landfill and to send it to a processor to make this nutrient-rich and extremely impactful soil amendment to help our soils. I hope that clears it up a little bit.
Embracing Change: From Fostering To Adoption & Community Impact
That’s great. We’ll dive into the value of compost in a minute but I’m going to take it back to intention and your children. Another thing we like to do in this show is celebrate folks that opt into change and face it head on. We had somebody earlier in the show who quit their career for a little while, took a break and went and hiked the El Camino Trail in Spain. It’s like these different ways and I share it on the show where I made a life transition. The courage that it takes to make those life transitions and how sometimes there’s self-doubt that’s involved.
At the end of the day, though, generally it’s a beautiful time to learn and grow and see the world differently. You have opted into change in your life and one of your children is adopted. I was hoping you could share a little bit. You went from fostering to adoption. Can you share a little bit about that experience and that journey? How has it affected you?
It’s extremely dear to my heart. I was taught again from my wonderful wife about opening up our family to the opportunity of taking care of another child that is not ours. We had two biological children. My wife and I decided that we wanted to open up our home and our family because we had resources to be able to do this, and give this opportunity to our biological children to experience what happens when you do this. There’s a lot of children out there that could utilize simply an opportunity to have a safe environment and someone that’s going to listen.
That’s all it takes. It’s just a home and someone willing to listen. We overviewed a few years, we had various long-term kids staying with us. It was an amazing experience. I’m still connected with a few of them and they’re becoming adults now. That’s a whole other story, which is amazing but it led to an opportunity where we had a call. We were on a break and we got a call from our caseworker saying, “We have what’s called a safe haven baby coming,” which means basically a mother will release the rights and just deliver a baby at a hospital or potentially not a hospital and then walk away. No questions asked. No one’s in trouble. The child is safe.
It’s a national law. It’s awesome. It helps keep bad things from happening. That phone call came in. On a Thursday, we had no newborn at home and by Saturday morning, we had a newborn at home, which was pretty incredible. The community came together. We had everything we needed on our doorstep. On a Sunday morning, our family came. We went and picked her up and brought her home. She’s an amazing addition to her family and it’s just been a blessing ever since. It takes a level of risk, chance, intent, concern and a lot of things out there that would make you go, “Maybe not.”
The reward from the child is irreplaceable and you will grow from it as well as an individual. Again, that’s a very powerful thing that has led to a lot of how I am as a person and my intent and things that I am involved in. I created an entire seven-year event around this that was raised for foster care and adoptive care in Colorado. Again, to circle it back, intent requires some courage, some chance and some risk but it’s worth it. It’s a powerful story and it’s pretty amazing.
I will ask like, starting a nonprofit and building a nonprofit that lasts for years.
It wasn’t necessarily a nonprofit. Me and a group in the community believed in adoptive and foster care. While we were fostering other families, I met other like-minded individuals doing the same thing and we said, “Our community needs to get some money together. We need to support this more.” There wasn’t much happening.
We did something that we loved which was CrossFit at the time and we started a successful large competition, an annual competition that brought all these families together just to compete and raise money. We didn’t take any of it. We didn’t want any of it. We just wanted to create the funding stream to put back into the system because we believed in fostering and adoptive care in the community. Me and some other guys just dove and said, “Let’s just do this. It’s going to be fun.”
Building community, bringing it together and finding an opportunity in something. It’s true that if you can slide into something that people are already doing and then take that and expand it. It’s brilliant.
It was something that anybody would just say, “I’ll do that.” Our attendance was good and I was pretty great. We got some good success and we had a few foster kids that showed up later at the events talking about how the event had supported them. That’s full circle.
Showcasing Value: The Drumbeat Of Compost's Benefits
There you go, storytelling. On that, I’m going to reorder the question because leaning into this idea of showcasing the value of something, storytelling and also finding these opportunities. One of the things I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve known you is you have this drum beat about the value of compost and you’ve already mentioned it here, this value of the end product. Focusing on that in the spirit of the long-term goal of building the infrastructure or building the investment that’s needed to expand the full organic recycling universe. Can you talk a little bit about why you start there and how you start there?
There are two factors here. The first is people don’t understand what the benefit that finished compost provides once it’s used in the soil. It’s tremendous and there’s a lot of reasons why. Everything from water retention to life biology being put back into the soil to nutrients to minerals. There’s a lot of reasons and not just one. There’s a lot. Our soils need to be rebuilt. We’ve beat up our soils. Not everywhere, but a lot of our soils are messed up. That’s a solution to a lot of other needs in the world that are trying to solve.
My point is, when you start with the finished compost and you can start to build the understanding around its value. Its value to the community, to the climate, to the circularity of the system, water retention, and pulling carbon out of the air and putting it back into the soil through plant health. That is something that’s not understood. The reason, I believe, that it’s not understood and why we have to flip it is because of the word waste. We call it food waste or green waste or organic waste. That immediately creates a negative connotation to the value of why you’re diverting organics in the first place.
You’re basically saying, “This is waste but you got to get in the bin and then that’s it.” Where’s the value? There is value in the reduction of methods being produced when it ends up in a landfill. I’m not discrediting that because that’s very important. The method is very important, but if we just stop there and we don’t continue to discuss the circularity of the system, which we call closing the compost loop, then you take away the ability to expand the program exponentially.
What can happen is we are driven to get the organics out of the landfill, which is very important. I don’t want to discredit that. We need to do that and not stop. At the same time, we also need to support the end market use of the finished compost for benefit locally because that allows the engine which is a diversion and processing material back in the market to work efficiently for relying on the compost manufacturer to sell everything.
We are driven to get the organic out of the landfill, which is very important.
We’re continually pushing and pushing more to them. We run out of space. We stockpile finished compost that could be used for benefit but it’s moving. It’s in our name. We’re compost manufacturers. We are good at breaking down organics and making a finished product that’s high quality that’s going to provide benefit to the soil. Whoever’s the diverter, municipality, city, government or homeowner. It doesn’t matter. Whoever is moving these materials and accumulating the landfill and being dedicated to that, which is important. Bringing it back locally only exponentially amplifies its benefit.
That’s why that drum that you hear too is pounding. You shouldn’t be pounded on constantly because if everybody truly believed or understood and knew how beneficial finished compost is and how it in a solution, its power is significant. When you walk up to an organics bin or you’re getting ready to start doing organics collection. The community’s bought in because they’re like, “Do you know what this is going to end up doing? It's going to water. It’s going to rebuild our soils locally. We’re going to do all these great things. It’s going to be awesome.”
You wouldn’t want to contaminate it, either. Again, this is a big ask but, in my mind, that’s the paradigm shift. That’s the behavioral change where you understand how beneficial it is to the point where you’re not going to throw contamination in the bin. It doesn’t happen accidentally but not intentionally. That’s my hope. I always relate it to a seat belt. We went through, I think it was in the ‘80s or late ‘90s, a campaign with the crash test dummies. You just saw it continually crashing in cars. Eventually, you just started seeing how a seatbelt was rescuing them or saving them then we got to airbags.
The seat belt changed. That behavioral change led to statistically around 90% of everybody in the country now instinctually puts on a seat belt. If you get into a car and you put it on. If you don’t, not everybody but most people are like, “I’m uncomfortable. Something’s wrong. Oh, seat belt.” You put it on. That sentence is the instinctual behavior of change that we need to implement for organics collection. Not only to do it but also to remove contamination because if you drop something in there. You’re like, “That’s going to mess up soil. That’s going to literally mess up my soil down at the city park where my kids go to play.” That’s what we need.
I have this theory that I shared on the show that if a city could basically eliminate a good portion, I don’t know how much they spend on it but they have a lot of city parks or city bushes and they’re putting fertilizer out there every year and whatever. You could eliminate all that if you had a clean way to get organic material diverted from the landfill, composted and then put back on to their soil. There’s this intrinsic value proposition also financially, potentially, if a city can figure out how to close the loop in the service of just the city.
Contamination Challenges: Protecting The Compost Stream
Without naming names. There’s plenty of cities along the Colorado for a range that now has the park square footage to bring back to finish compost and apply it to those parks through top dressing and would not have enough based on their current version but let’s say they double through the version or they tripled it. They still have plenty of opportunity to bring it back for beneficial use. There’s critical challenges within all of this. One, it’s contamination. We’ll talk about that. You have to keep that under control and you have to stop it at the source because that money is critical. The simple answer is, there are plenty of opportunities for cities to use finished compost.
Why is contamination such a challenge? To reiterate the aspect of getting people to change their behavior, that aspect of this Change Cycle show, which is all about. How do we drive change to serve this circular economy? Contamination seems to be this big barrier. Can you unpack that a little bit?
We’ve created a system of convenience. Within our recycling streams, we want to be able to collect as much as possible. Make it as easy and convenient for the consumer to do for the benefit of diversion and that is a real big challenge when it comes to the organics collection stream because the way contamination affects our stream is potent. It would be a good way to say it. It doesn’t take much to cause a lot of problems. Let’s just think of a six pack. Everybody can relate to a six-pack of bottles.
It doesn't take much to cause a lot of problems.
Traditionally on a curbside collection stream for organics, you’re going to put your bin out in front of the home’s. Let’s just say that bin, one bin, someone walks by and throws that six pack in the bin. No one sees it. That’s in one bin but maybe that route for your collection hauler is about 250 homes that day. One truck picking up all those bins, putting it into a truck. It’s now in one truck for about 200 households and let’s just say that happened 2 or 3 times. Not unrealistic, then that goes to a transfer facility where two other or three other trucks on their own routes did the same thing.
Lands on a transfer facility. All that has been lifted up, scooped and put into a large semi-truck to be brought out to A1 for processing. Those bottles are going to shatter and break into pieces. We’re not going to screen it all out and that will end up in the finished compost, but it just contaminated all of that. Either, if we catch it, which we hope we do. That’s going to get rejected. All of that. Think about that.
Think about 700 homes that did all that effort on the front end only to get rejected on the back end because we can’t get the glass out. Glass contamination is so impactful and it’s going to end up in the finished compost, which then you’re finished compost must go to market to a garden. Do you want your kids digging around their soil with broken glass? No. That’s a safety hazard. That’s dramatic but that happens all the time. That’s why it’s so impactful because we’re producing a product that goes back into soil.
Potentially, that compost has gone to an industrial use where it’s put back into the soil, never disturbed again and not going to be problematic because it’s just an aggregate. Yes, but when you look at contamination, you’re going to think of all these other things, too. As a buyer, you’re just going to be like, “No, I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m asking for.” A contamination can happen on so many different levels to where it’s an accident to where it’s wishful recycling. You think it’s supposed to go in there but it doesn’t but you’re not sure so you just throw it in there anyways. Don’t do that.
Contamination happens on so many levels, like wishful recycling. You think it belongs, but you're not sure, so you just throw it in anyway. Don't do that.
When in doubt, throw it out.
A truck didn’t get cleaned out and then it’s cross-contaminated at a transfer facility. It’s just a lot of opportunity. We have to just because of how valuable end market material is and what it can do. We just have to slow down a little bit and take more opportunity to protect the string through the process but the simplest effective way to protect it is at the smallest level and smallest volume being the bin and just being diligent about it. I know you can’t protect someone that just happened to walk down the street but that’s where we need to get to. There’s people out there that say that’s never going to happen. We have to figure out ways to use technology to sort it but not on a micro scale. You’re not going to get it all out.
Influencing End Users: Reducing Contamination & Building Public Familiarity
Have you seen things work because I know compostable packaging is no longer accepted in the area? Which I’m sure was a big transition for the market. Have you all been able to influence the end user to make a change to reduce contamination?
Yes. Have we had success by reducing the inputs allowed in the stream? One hundred percent but it continually slips. Contamination in the stream is not a one-and-done solution. It’s a continual effort that has to be a motor that just keeps going. You had to just continually remind people why you’re doing it and why it is beneficial. It’s just not a one-and-done solution. That’s where we get excited and we drive with these campaigns, which is awesome. We need to do that, but at the same time we need to not stop.
It has to be something that we’re always doing, monitoring, teaching and looking at. I know that requires more resources but that’s the only way we’re going to do it successfully and that’s important. I know you mentioned the compostables. We’re not there yet and the strategy for compostables or even just organic diversion in general is to start small. Start simple. That can be as simple as just yard trimmings. Start there and dial it in and get the public familiar with what's happening. It’s like, “Are we converting these organics?” It’s not just for landfill diversion. It’s not just for methane because it’s going to produce a finished compost that we can use locally to help save water in our soils.
That’s where we build and I have this idea. I’m going to throw out on your show to see if you can get someone to do it. If one of your sustainability people are individuals that work with the municipality or city or someone out there in the world. I would challenge them to not even start a diversion program yet. Start sourcing, finish compost and start using it in your city. Use it in high visual areas like your public park. Start showing how it’s benefiting the soil.
Start showing how it’s retaining some additional water., how it’s greener in the spring and how it lasts later into the fall. There’s resiliency in the turf for the kids, and it’s not getting torn up its art. Literally use it, start doing it and build a campaign around it. Look how incredible this is. By the way, we’re going to start an organics diversion program. It’s going to produce all the compost that we use in this park. Don’t mess it up. Don’t get it dirty because you use it, you can continue to do what we’re doing now. I want to try that. I think it would be an amazing way to kick off an organics diversion program.
I agree.
I was just throwing that up there.
Advice For Sustainability Professionals: Focus On The "Why" And Local Impact
What advice do you have for other sustainability professionals who may or may not be focused on compost but just in general trying to highlight the value in the spirit of hopefully improving processes upstream? What’s the advice you might have for those? It can be organic or any type of stream. The question is more about how did you come to realize that focusing on the end value or how much you identify what is that in value or sellable value, if you will, if you’re trying to push any sustainability initiative?
When people understand the why. They’re not just being told to do it. They are part of the overall system and this is why it’s important. You got to show them. Got to show them why it’s important because then you can get the buy-in. We got to get the buy in on the why and we’re missing the why because there’s a lot of doubt. There’s a lot of doubt in why, like, does recycling matter? Does it get recycled? Do the organic just get thrown away anyways? It’s not worth the effort.
We have a little bit of an uphill battle more so after just reading the news, but it’s the why and I believe staying local is powerful. It’s like, locally, this is why it’s important. As for our community here, let’s just say it’s the city forecast. This is important. Let’s go. Why? This is why it’s important and then showing that and telling those stories. Be a good storyteller. Walk around. Talk to people. Show it. Social media, have fun and get it out there.
I do like the emphasis on local too, because it does feel like if you can showcase something locally, then it can potentially catch fire and spread as well.
On the local level is this competitive nature. Let’s just say we’re talking about cities. There’s this independent nature within states for cities to be the best and be doing it very well. If you can grab a couple heroes that are maybe not like the city and the state but they just happen to be way over here and you’re like, “What? You’re composting compost to your athletic turf, parks for the city for the residents and they’re not? What?” I enjoy some competitive healthy competition or intentional guilt. Be loud. Don’t be afraid to tell and talk about what you’re doing. It’s only beneficial to those around you, in my opinion. That’s important. It can be hard and intimidating.
Embracing Change: Creativity, Growth, and Learning from Mistakes
Last question. For those who might be having trouble embracing change, what advice do you have on how to embrace change?
That’s a great question and it was a great lead in, too. You asked me this question and I answered with creativity and growth. I’m an artist at heart. I’m an artist by trade. That’s my background. I truly believe our mistakes are how we learn. That’s where I’m saying, make mistakes. Take chances. I know that sounds like being willing to mess up. A good example is like, if there’s contamination in the stream and you put it in there, then talk about it. It’s like, “We’re not supposed to use black plastic bags, guys because you know why? It’s going to cause contamination in the stream.” We recommended that. “Let’s fix it and this is why.” We got to learn and be willing to just learn from our mistakes. Put it out there. It’s okay.
Be transparent about them and learn. This was great. I enjoyed this conversation. You started with and then ended with show them like show your kids and the people you’re trying to talk to. Show them the value or show them the things that you want them to expand into. Show them video and testimonies. This proof points to the idea of showing the local areas, the competition. Being very visible about the changes that you’re trying to drive is a lesson that people can write down and think about in their day-to-day. It’s like, how can I show people more? How can I connect more to what might expand their thinking about this topic?
That’s great advice. You also honed in on this idea of value and benefit and the why. Articulating that, being very clear about it and then also showing them and not just, “Here’s all the data behind it.” It’s important to have all the credibility and the data, but having that picture of the lawn where before the compost and after the compost it’s powerful. Having that visual representation but focusing on what’s the benefit and what’s the value there are good reminders for how to influence change in this space.
I also appreciated how you brought up this concept of courage, taking a chance, leaning into the ideas of mistakes and taking risks. All of that. You can’t do this work without being willing because unless you’ve been in space for twenty years, which there’s a very small percentage of us that have. We’re all learning along the way and trying to figure it out. There’s a lot of confusing trade-offs in sustainability. This openness and willingness to make mistakes and having the courage to do it anyway is a good reminder. Thank you so much for your time, Clinton. This was a great conversation. I appreciate it.
You’re welcome. Thanks for inviting me to be on your show.
Important Links
About Clinton Sander
Clinton T. Sander, Marketing Manager at A1 Organics, brings extensive experience in retail natural foods marketing, including creating brand campaigns, innovative merchandising techniques, and digital marketing initiatives. He is dedicated to regenerative practices, sustainability, community engagement, and values such as family. Clinton has a firsthand understanding of the significance of diverting organics from landfills in commercial retail food settings and the associated contamination challenges.
In his role at A1 Organics, Clinton focuses on developing marketing initiatives and communication strategies that highlight the environmental benefits of compost application and organics recycling. He is deeply passionate about the regenerative potential of compost application and recognizes the interconnectedness of soil health, food quality, and human well-being.
Additionally, Clinton serves on the Colorado Producer Responsibility Advisory Board, representing the compost manufacturing sector. He also co-chairs the Market Development Committee for the US Composting Council, on the Board of Directors for Recycle Colorado, is part of the leadership team for the CO Composting Council and serves as a sustainability advisor for Eco Products'.