It’s Only Trash if You Treat It Like Trash

Composting does the world a world of good. The average American family produces more than 500 pounds of leftover organic material every year. The vast majority of these organics takes a long, fossil fuel-powered trip to the landfill. Methane from these landfills is equal to around 20 percent of the pollution output of coal-fired power plants in the United States. For every four families that compost with Compost Cab, we keep a ton of organics – 2,000 pounds of what most people still consider trash – out of landfills each year. We compost it locally instead. And in doing so, we create hundreds of pounds of new nutrient-rich, fertile, natural soil.

Composting in the City Used to Be Hard

Space constraints and urban density are a killer for composting at home. Traditional compost piles are seldom a real option. Compost tumblers only work for people with houses who are willing to overlook the odor, manage runoff and leakage, and battle rodents and insects. As for apartment dwellers, electric composting units or worm bins are out there. But the fancy indoor units require a significant up-front investment (and can still smell). And keeping live worms at home still appeals to only the hardest of the hard-core. We get it: there are plenty of good reasons not to compost. But not anymore.

Compost Cab Is Easy

Compost Cab was born of personal demand. We asked ourselves: “What would a composting solution have to look like for us to participate?” It needed to be leak-proof, rat-proof, and odor-free. It needed to be nearly effortless, as simple and intuitive as taking out the trash. It needed to be useful – we wanted the compost for our garden. And it needed to be reasonably priced, without a significant up-front cost. We went from there, and developed a service that makes it easy to be green.

For Your Home

You sign up online. We provide you with a standardized bin equipped with a sturdy, compostable bag liner. You fill the bin with your organic material, and once a week, on a reliable, fuel-efficient schedule, Compost Cab picks up the bag, leaving behind only a clean bin with a new liner. No invoicing or annoying paperwork – we’ll just ping your debit or credit card $8 per week per bin. And no long-term commitments. You can stop your service at any time, though we don’t think you’ll want to. It’s that simple.

For Your Community

We’re proud to help you support local urban agriculture. We don’t work with an anonymous, far-off composting facility. Instead, our primary composting partner is Engaged Community Offshoots, a seed-stage urban farm in College Park, MD. They use finished compost to grow natural, nutritious food for local kids. And because the resulting soil is so fertile, they can grow more efficiently, producing more food per acre. Together with our customers and partners, Compost Cab helps feed people and develop more equitable food systems. We’re also excited that as we grow along with our customers and partners, we’ll be creating green-collar jobs for people with both white-collar AND blue-collar experience.

For Your Business

Maybe you’re just looking for a cost-effective way to make your business a little bit greener. Or maybe you only serve local, seasonal ingredients and pour fair-trade coffee, and already know you want to compost. Either way, Compost Cab can help. Redefine what you think of as waste in your business. Improve your green profile. Save money. Give back to the community. Improve the environment. Compost Cab also offers a series of innovative marketing programs and community-building initiatives to all our commercial partners. To talk to us about working with your business, sign up and make sure to select “business” from the pull-down menu.

A Unique Soil-Exchange Program

The compost we create from your organics makes for extraordinary soil. It’s beautiful, fertile, and all natural. And it’s yours. Here’s how it works: Once you’ve been with Compost Cab for nine months, you can start claiming your finished compost. For every 50 pounds of organics we collect from you, we’ll deliver you 5 pounds of fresh compost and 1 pound of worm castings, a magical combination for your garden. (These figures vary for commercial partners.) Of course, if you don’t want or need this amazing soil and natural fertilizer, we’re always happy to donate it on your behalf to ECO, our local, not-for-profit urban farm partner, who will then use it to grow more food for our community.

What’s in It for You

Cleaner air. Less waste. A smaller carbon footprint. A greener home or business. A stronger community. Incredible new soil. Isn’t composting awesome?