At the Harvard restaurant, all our kitchen scraps and everything that’s thrown into that one big trash can in the dining area (paper cups, napkins, spoons, sandwich wraps) is compost. The only stuff that we don’t compost is our latex gloves and some plastic packaging.
We’ve had a lot of trouble finding companies to pick up our compost. You’d think this stuff would be like gold, you’d have no problem getting rid of it, but that’s not the case. We’re splitting our compost between two companies right now…
DOWN TO EARTH WASTE SOLUTIONS
-new start-up company, free to pick up, turns organic matter into fertilizer to sell to farms
-use “cold” compost method (can take our vegetable scraps but not cups/spoons)
SAVE THAT STUFF
-much larger company
-use a “hot” compost method (can take all our food scraps, including eggshells and dairy products, as well as our cups/spoons)
-way more expensive, about $20 a toter (industrial sized bin, we go through 3 a week).
-really good about being flexible with pick-ups and accommodations
We ended up using Save that Stuff to pick up our compostable paper goods, and giving our food compost to Down to Earth Waste Solutions, trying to save money. I just got an email from Down to Earth Waste Solutions saying that they are moving to hot composting and can take everything now, but they’re going to start charging us (more costs involved with hot processing).
All this research is getting us excited about something we’d really love to do: get the whole Holyoke Center doing compost. We’ll keep you posted on that.