Recycling in Today’s Colonial Williamsburg

By Lisa O. Monroe

It’s a chilly April morning a little before 7 a.m. when I seat myself in a golf cart next to Richard Nicoll.

Today we’re not heading out for a round of golf.

As Colonial Williamsburg’s Bill and Jean Lane Director of Coach and Livestock, Nicoll has a more important mission – to rid the streets of the Historic Area of those pesky piles of horse poo.

Unofficially nicknamed the “poopmobile,” the golf cart looks pretty much like any other except for the bright blue apparatus on the back with the red Honda motor and the very large hose. That’s what’s used to vacuum up the horse and oxen droppings left on the streets the previous day.

As I head out with Nicoll to clean up the streets, one of his employees starts in a second poopmobile to vacuum the animal droppings from some of the smaller pastures.

With an increased interest in protecting the environment and in reusing what Mother Nature already provides, machines like the Australian-made Maxi Vac are becoming more commonplace, Nicoll says.

The apparatus basically is used like a giant vacuum to suck up the animal droppings. It can pick it up either wet or dry, and its manufacturer, Greystone, boasts that its machines make “light work of an age-old task.” While Colonial Williamsburg uses golf carts, the machines can also be pulled by a lawnmower or all-terrain vehicle.

Cleaning up the manure from the Historic Area streets where the horses and oxen walk, pull carriages or perform demonstrations obviously makes them cleaner and safer places for guests, visitors and employees to walk. But it has other advantages, as well.

It also cuts down on flies and on the internal parasite levels in the animals and leaves more clean pasture grass for the animals to graze.

And the manure is eventually transformed into nutrient-dense mulch. In fact, much of what is vacuumed up by Colonial Williamsburg’s two poopmobiles is composted and re-used on its grounds by the landscaping crew. What’s vacuumed in the fall basically helps to beautify the spring gardens.

Horse manure makes excellent mulch because it already has a high grass and hay content, Nicoll says. “It’s in high demand for gardeners.”

Colonial Williamsburg also uses the poopmobile to vacuum its chicken coops, which are typically very hard to get into to clean.

Riding the poopmobile can be an invigorating early-morning routine for Nicoll and his staff, as well. And it’s an interesting way to welcome the day. That’s because they get to see all the behind-the-scenes hustle and bustle which occurs every single morning in the Historic Area before the guests arrive.

Likewise, the poopmobile has become a familiar, even welcome, sight to the early-bird walkers, joggers and employees who are getting their jobs done early.

“You get to see the other side of Colonial Williamsburg that most other people don’t see,” Nicoll says. “There are a lot of familiar faces in the morning.”

On our ride, we see maintenance vehicles bringing supplies into the Historic area, which is not open to motor traffic during the day. Historic interpreters are getting set up for the day, and other workers perform such duties as cutting the grass, emptying trash cans and laying bricks.

Sometimes Nicoll or a member of his staff will notify appropriate departments when they see something that needs to be fixed. “It’s an extra set of eyes,” he says.

Many walkers, joggers and workers greet or wave to Nicoll as he makes a sweep of the Historic Area on our morning venture. He holds the hose in one hand as he maneuvers the golf cart through the streets, stopping very often in each area where we see droppings.

“We know roughly where the horses go so we know where to look,” he explains.

After he’s cleaned up Duke of Gloucester Street and some of the other roads in the Historic Area, he meets up with the other poopmobile on the grounds where they dump the manure onto a pile already in the making.

Dumping the Maxi Vac is fairly simple. Just unlatch a rear door and tip the tank, which can hold around 800 liters or as much as five to six wheelbarrows.

While most of the manure will be used on-site after it’s composted, Nicoll says he also gets requests from area gardeners. There’s usually plenty to go around, he says, as new supplies of the raw material are always being produced.

Composted horse manure is especially valuable as a soil amendment for gardens, and can be incorporated into the garden before spring and fall plantings, as well as at other times during the year, according to an article on “Pollution Control for Horse Stables and Backyard Livestock” from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The compost improves soil aeration, provides food for beneficial earthworms, increases water filtration, improves soil fertility and can even improve soil structure over time, the article said.

Composted manure can be used in home gardens, landscape planting beds, community gardens, and commercial truck farms or anywhere the soil would benefit from increased organic matter.