Today, the AgriWrap team had the opportunity to visit one of the 1000+ Joy of Urban Farming locations. We are very grateful to Mayor Joy Belmonte and her team for connecting us to Sunnyville Farm, and we would like to extend our thanks to the staff from the Department of Sustainability who accompanied us on this visit.

Sunnyville Farm is a low cost, volunteer-run farm where farmers can sell the produce they cultivate. The facility operates entirely off-grid, using donated land and solar energy, which means they have minimal costs.

We learned a lot about their composting practices, which was particularly valuable as we plan to partner with an organization that can compost our bioplastic products. Sunnyville Farm recently piloted a program in which local food vendors compost their organic waste through a simple process, then donate the enriched soil back to the farm. In addition, Sunnyville composts its own organic waste, using part of it as fertilizer for their fields and selling the surplus.

Another interesting composting initiative is their partnership with Nespresso. They collect used espresso pods, remove the aluminum lids, which are sold to smelters, and compost the coffee grounds. Because coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, they make excellent fertilizer; however, they must be balanced with alkaline materials to neutralize the pH.

We also received many suggestions for potential local feedstocks for our bioplastic. Ideas included sweet potato starch, taro root, jute, ube, and water hyacinth. We were especially interested in jute and ube, as both are affordable, easy to grow locally, and could be promising sustainable inputs for our material.

Overall, this visit gave us valuable insights that will help us better map out the post-consumer life cycle of our product and strengthen our sustainability goals.