Marvin Hayes

The Baltimore region ranks among the worst in the U.S. for air pollution. According to a 2018 study, the region had 114 days where the air quality ranked as yellow or worse by the EPA’s Air Quality Index. Poor air quality triggers asthma and can cause other health issues. In fact, children in Baltimore City have asthma at twice the rate of the rest of the country. And, our hospitalization rate for pediatric asthma is one of the highest in the nation.

Some neighborhoods, like Brooklyn-Curtis Bay, have to contend with additional environmental challenges related to industrial pollution – including three active trash incinerators, pollution from the nearby highways, and factories both active and inactive. The soil in these communities are contaminated.
Marvin Hayes thinks composting is a big part of the solution to Baltimore’s many environmental challenges. “Composting is the alternative to trash incineration,” he says.” About 80 percent of our trash can be recycled or composted.”
“’Compost: Learn, so we don’t have to burn,’ that’s our motto,” Hayes says. “We can do so much through composting. We can help young people develop job skills and become environmental champions. And, we can help Baltimore get closer to zero waste.”
Hayes teaches youth about composting and green jobs and has expanded his composting system at the garden to be able to handle more food scraps. Through the collective, he already works with a group of students at Benjamin Franklin High School, who have launched a zero-waste challenge and a composting project at the school, as well as school groups from across Baltimore who come to the garden to learn about small-scale composting and alternatives to trash incineration.

“I want to give this city composting fever,” says Hayes. “I want my legacy to be that I’m training the next generation. There is power in empowering other Youth and, seeing their vision and goals, and encouging them the way that I have been!