How Ocean Fest, Wilmington Compost Company and GreenDrop Farms are closing the loop on waste and nurturing a healthier coastal community in the process.
Photography by Matt McGraw
Photography by Daria Amato
A festival organizer, two composters and a farmer walk into a bar.
Wait — no jokes here. Instead, there’s a story to be told about an exciting collaboration between Ocean Fest, Wilmington Compost Company and GreenDrop Farms.
It’s a symbiotic relationship created by Ocean Fest Sustainability and Eco Zone Coordinator Jan Farmer, brothers Riley and Trey Alber of Wilmington Compost Company, and Casey Glover of GreenDrop Farms — and it’s an inspiring example of eco-friendly collaboration that benefits everyone who cares about protecting the coastal environment.
It began with Ocean Fest, a festival founded in Surf City in 2019 by three surfing buddies motivated to share their love of the ocean, celebrate the joy of surfing and protect the coastal environment. It has since become a multiple award-winning example of how to host a green event that helps, not harms, the environment. The festival has strict sustainability requirements, including a zero-plastic policy and a commitment to recycling and composting.
According to Farmer, in May of 2025, materials from Ocean Fest events, including 1,477 pounds of compostable materials and seven bins (96 gallons) of recyclables, were diverted from landfills. Another 160 pounds of compostable waste and five bins of recyclables were diverted from landfills at November’s Oysterpalooza event.
“Composting is possibly the most important effort we make,” Farmer says. “And it requires cooperation and compliance from our vendors, volunteers and event attendees.”
All that compostable waste goes to Wilmington Compost Company, a family-owned and operated local business in Rocky Point, which turns the results of Ocean Fest’s cooperation and compliance into soil enhancements — compost, topsoil and mulch — for landscapers and local farmers.
Brothers Riley and Trey Alber of Wilmington Compost Company (WCC) have supported Ocean Fest since its beginning.
“We started supporting Ocean Fest in 2018 when we were asked to be a sponsor and to bring a dynamic of waste awareness and diversion to the festival grounds,” Riley says. “Sponsorship was a no-brainer for WCC given the Ocean Fest mission, the community and the impact.”
Wilmington Compost Company has supported the festival ever since, working with Farmer to collect festival food scraps and compostable service materials and turn them into nutrient-rich compost for gardeners and farmers.
“Removing food waste from our landfills not only reduces volume of input, but also reduces methane production, while using that waste to create compost — a very useful product,” Farmer says. “It’s a trash-to-treasure kind of thing.”
This year, the Alber brothers added a twist that gives back to a local farmer.
One of WCC’s missions is to close loops ecologically and economically. Trey had the idea to close the recycling loop and support a local farmer by donating five yards of composted material from the festival.
“To do that with the festival waste, Trey thought we should partner with one of our local Pender County farmers and friends, Casey Glover at GreenDrop Farms, because she has done so much for the community,” Riley says. “Casey has supported WCC by growing with our compost and soil blends over the years, so donating back to her farm just made sense.”
GreenDrop Farms is an herb and native plant farm and herbal apothecary in Hampstead. Glover not only curates healthy plants at her farm, but also founded the Hampstead Farmers Market, which creates a weekly outlet for community members to connect with local farmers and source locally grown food.
Glover speaks enthusiastically about the products from Wilmington Compost Company.
“They have done a wonderful job creating a variety of living soil blends for different growing needs and offering a real benefit to regenerative farms and anyone who deeply cares about what’s in their soil,” she says. “We used their compost/ topsoil blend to establish our hugelkultur beds and garden plots.”
Hugelkultur is a German gardening method that creates raised beds from buried, decaying wood, branches and organic debris topped with soil. This process improves soil fertility and water retention and extends growing seasons by slowly releasing nutrients and moisture.
“We’ll use the soil components from the Ocean Fest compost to support our coastal native shrub and tree seedlings,” Glover adds.
Glover explains the link between native soil blends and thriving native plants, noting that native plant production is her major focus this year. The living soil blends created by Wilmington Compost Company will help fuel that growth and success.
“Growing native plants in a native-style soil blend is an important part of the work because these plants evolved in relationship with specific mineral profiles, drainage patterns and microbial communities,” Glover says. “When the soil biology is alive and balanced, native seedlings tend to establish stronger roots, adapt more easily and grow with greater resilience over time. It supports healthier transplants, less reliance on outside inputs and ultimately a more regenerative cycle from soil to plant to ecosystem.”
Glover used the compost provided by Wilmington Compost Company to nurture plants, many of which will be for sale on Thursdays at the Hampstead Farmers Market. GreenDrop Farms also hosts on-farm events during the growing season.
Riley and Trey Alber look forward to the growth of these efforts.
“We hope this effort will continue for years to come to raise awareness around composting, the benefits of using compost in soil and the importance of working together to close loops that protect our community and coastline,” Riley says. “We are stoked to donate five yards to GreenDrop Farms to enhance soil health, promote local soil and create a closed loop together — returning organic materials back where they belong: our soil. We believe in this community and believe our services along this stretch of coastline are critical to protecting what we all love.”
This growing collaboration between a festival, composters and a local farmer helps protect, enhance and rejuvenate the coastal environment — proving that when waste is treated as a resource, everyone benefits.
THREE PARTNERS, ONE PURPOSE
Ocean Fest
theoceanfest.org
Ocean Fest returns to downtown Surf City on Saturday, May 1, 2027, with a free, all-day beachside celebration.
Wilmington Compost Company
wilmingtoncompostcompany.com
GreenDrop Farms
greendropfarmsnc.com
