It All Started with TED

In November 2011, I was introduced to TED while searching Netflix for a good documentary. I came across “The Future We Will Create.” I was moved by so many of the presentations and the back story of how TED has grown into the type of organization we (those who are unfamiliar with TED) always wished existed. Honestly, by the time the film ended, I was overcome with a renewed sense of hope and the realization and belief that I could become an agent of change.

For the sake of this TED Story, Organic Refuse is Certified Organic: Non-GMO, no pesticides, and no industrial fertilizers or herbicides. And Green Waste refers to non-organic materials e.g. contaminated with GMOs, pesticides and the like.

I am on Gerson Therapy. If you are not familiar with Gerson Therapy, you can learn more at gerson.com. Suffice it to say it is a strict Organic diet whose patients consume roughly 40lbs of organic food per day. Every day, I produce an enormous amount of Organic Refuse: apple cores, banana peels, organic coffee grounds, ends of carrots, celery stocks and the trimmings of a variety of Organic produce. The refuse weighs heavy on my mind.

I live in a small condo, without a yard or outdoor area; no room for any type of composting apparatus; and our complex does not have a Green Recycle Bin. The guilt I feel about throwing the refuse in the trash is taxing enough, but the fact that the refuse is purely organic (a rare commodity) is both agitating and galling. I began to visualize thousands of Gerson patients all combining their pure Organic Refuse with common Green Waste, or worse the trash. Then, while shopping at Organic Grocers and Farmers’ Markets, I envisioned all the organic consumers around me wasting their organic refuse. The enormity of the imaginable loss of so much Organic Refuse made me angry at myself for not only contributing to the problem, but being acutely aware and doing nothing.

Now, I realize that there are those who compost their organic refuse at home. But a family on a standard piece of land can only use so much compost before they eventually dispose of the excess with Green Waste. I then began to perceive the magnitude of raw, pure organic refuse potentially being contaminated by Green waste. I asked myself, what if I could rescue organic refuse before it is contaminated and wasted. How could I maintain the Organic Lifecycle of post-consumer refuse. Thus Rescue Organic Refuse, a non-profit organization was born.