Compost Cab Picks Up Your Scraps

The Compost Cab touts the benefits of compost pick up in Washington D.C. Photo: Compost Cab

In 2010, Jeremy Brosowsky was braving Washington D.C.’s “snowmageddon,” thinking his dream of developing rooftop farms for lower-income communities was gone.

“It turns out building owners don’t like to talk about putting half a foot of soil on their roofs when those same roofs are already covered in three-plus feet of snow,” Brosowsky writes on his website.

Within 24 hours of feeling hopeless during the storm, the eco-activist thought up a new idea: Have compostables? Time to call a cab!

Today, over 200 Washington D.C. businesses, homes and schools have requested Brosowsky drop by in his Compost Cab, a mobile waste pickup that delivers to nearby farms for composting. Compost Cab provides the bin and come collection time, drops by in its yellow-painted trucks for regularly scheduled pickups or one-off special events to haul away discarded fruit and vegetable scraps.

Learn the Basics: The Simple Science of Composting

“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,” the company says on its website. “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.”

The hope is to cut down on the organic waste that winds up in landfills, releasing methane, the powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere in bulk. Instead of creating greenhouse gases, the Compost Cab uses organic food scraps to create more food, feeding families rather than poisoning them, Brosowsky writes.

Home pickup starts at $8 a week per bin and is only available in the Washington D.C. area. Other compost pickups exist in large metropolitan areas, including Urban Worm Girl in Chicago, AZ Valley in Phoenix and NYCompost in New York.

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