Since 2021, PP&C has partnered with twelve sites to design, build, train, and operate community composting programs.
Now · UFO Palm Springs
A Palm Springs backyard turned into a working urban farm. UFO is where PP&C proves the model on its own ground, bringing composting, food production, education, and workforce development together on one small residential lot. What works here is what goes out to the partner sites.Learn more about the farm
The only PP&C site currently in operation.
A composting project inside an animal sanctuary, closing the loop between the animals, the waste they produce and the ground they live on.
A composting system built for an animal sanctuary.
Students turned their campus into a community composting site using thermophilic pile composting. PP&C ran the resource audit, designed the site layout, and trained students and faculty to operate and troubleshoot the system. Partnerships with the cafeteria, a local food bank, and area businesses supplied the material, and the FFA garden was rebuilt with new metal beds.
20,140 lbs of food scraps and 57,508 lbs of woodchips, mulch, and manure processed.
The Urban Conservation Corps added organic waste to a recycling program that had covered bottles, electronics, and tires. PP&C designed the GeoBin site layout, trained site operators and corps members in composting methods and data management, and supported them through operational problems as they came up.
5,531 lbs of food scraps, 4,766 lbs of mushroom substrate, and 1,238 lbs of mulch composted.
Composting became the capstone project for two classes at Green Academy in Thermal. PP&C ran the opening waste audit, designed a GeoBin system sized for the site, and trained teacher Matthew Kreps as site operator alongside his students. Compost from the system feeds raised beds, a mini greenhouse, and an aquaponic system, and the program continues after the grant term.
6,291 lbs of food scraps and 8,484 lbs of woodchips diverted.
A closed-loop campus food system where scraps from the cafeteria and local coffee shops become compost, the compost grows food, and the produce is sold back to the cafeteria or donated to the local food bank. PP&C served as site trainer, reviving the composting operation, training two terms of Climate Action Fellows, and writing a site operations manual so the program could run without outside support.
34,085 lbs of food scraps and 117,322 lbs of mulch diverted.
PP&C designed the composting system on Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians land and trained the team to operate it.
Composting established on tribal land.
A former golf course now managed as a nature preserve, where composting rebuilds soil and supports native planting. PP&C managed weekly operations, handling roughly 1,000 pounds of food scraps a week from Chef Tanya's Kitchen and local volunteers, and tracked inputs, temperatures, and compost quality. The finished compost went into native trees and desert-adapted plants.
35,599 lbs of food scraps and 40,356 lbs of woodchips and mulch processed.
A four-day, 20-hour training for 20 to 30 UCC Indio members. Classroom sessions at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert covered climate change, composting benefits, and waste reduction. Field training at the McCarthy Center gave members hands-on practice building and troubleshooting compost systems. PP&C designed and led the curriculum and mentored participants on careers in sustainability.
20 to 30 corps members trained. UCC expanded its recycling program to include organics.
A composting site at a church that serves meals to unhoused neighbors several days a week. PP&C designed the system around locally available inputs, trained volunteers, and ran waste audits to track performance. The finished compost built eight raised garden beds that now grow food for the community.
35,655 lbs of food scraps and 29,310 lbs of woody material diverted. 8 raised beds built.
This project started under a Farm-to-Fork grant teaching young children where their food comes from, then grew into a full composting operation under the Community Composting for Green Spaces grant. PP&C ran the waste audit and zero waste plan, designed the system, and trained staff and volunteers to operate it.
46,900 lbs of food scraps and 86,502 lbs of wood chips composted. Over 300 people trained.
The earliest PP&C community composting site, built with volunteers from the Neighbors-4-Neighbors program. Food scraps from the community were composted with wood chips from local tree trimming services, and the finished compost established a community garden that N4N volunteers still run today.
3,049 lbs of food scraps and 8,571 lbs of wood chips diverted.
Every site above grew from the same soil: local material, local labour, local food.
Two projects, McCarthy Center and St. Margaret's, open without a photo because no images exist for those sites yet. They fill in automatically if you find any.
PP&C has designed, built, managed, and operated community composting systems for the following organizations:
PP&C has provided system design, technical guidance, and implementation support for:
PP&C has delivered workforce development and organics recycling training through:
Our working farm and proof-of-concept site in Palm Springs demonstrates how community composting and urban agriculture can be integrated into a single local system. It serves as a living example of our approach, bringing together composting, food production, education, and workforce development in one operational model.
