Paying For Food Scrap Pick Up?

Why would I Pay for Compost Pick up?

This is a question I get asked all the time.  I am picking up your food scraps and using them as a resource to create a saleable product, shouldn’t this be free?  And on one hand they would be right, it is a resource that has been undervalued and under utilized.  I believe that our organic waste, the food scraps, the yard waste etc… is a resource that has not traditionally been handled well or fully utilized.  I would argue that it has lost it’s perceived value and has traditionally been wasted.

But back to the numbers.  Why isn’t this service free?

Right now I can sell Compost for $65/yard. That is the value that the market has dictated.

The average household produces approximately 1 cubic yard of food waste a year.  During the composting process this material is broken down and reduces in volume by at least half.  So for each client I can potentially make $32.50 a year on the food waste that I collect from them.  And that’s if everything goes right.

When you factor in the price of gas to collect each households food scraps, the fuel to run the skid steer in order to make the compost and my time, and the land I need in order to make it, it adds up.

So what you are paying for is the convenience of having someone remove the Food Scraps directly from your home, with no mess and no fuss and you can feel good knowing that your food scraps are contributing to better soils and a better world instead of creating more problems when they go to the landfill.

I am on a mission to change peoples perception and bring value back to our organic waste.  Showing people that this “resource” should be used to improve our soils so that we can grow healthy food, to grow healthy humans and healthy communities and the world.

Won’t you join me?