Above: A composting service could begin picking up in Southborough by the end of this month if enough people sign up soon. (image from promotional email)
Two years ago, I shared news that Public Works was promoting a potential Curbside Composting program in Southborough. It appears that the vendor is still short of the number needed to get the bi-weekly pickup service to come to town.
This week, a resident who signed up for the program asked me to share their call for 37 more households to join them. Here are the details.
Resident Scott Berman writes:
Black Earth Compost gets awesome reviews, many of our neighbor towns have it, and Southborough can too, if enough people sign up for it.
A message he shared from Black Earth Compost promotes that they could begin on November 29th if they reach their 50 customer minimum. (So it looks like, so far only 13 households have enrolled.)
The message promotes “The Importance of Composting”:
Curbside composting is the easiest way to reduce waste by 30%, return nutrients to the soil, reduce our reliance on synthetic fertilizers, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Composting is essential because it addresses 4 major environmental crises we are currently facing. MA landfills are closing by 2033, the cost of waste disposal is increasing, topsoil continues to be depleted of nutrients and increasing CO2 & methane emissions contribute to climate change.
The pickup service cost is $89.99 for 6 months or $15.99 per month. There is also a startup cost in the form of a starter kit. There is the standard version for $39.50 that includes a 13 gallon curbside bin with15 liners, plus 30 liners for a countertop container (but not container). Apartment starter kits with only a 4 gallon curbside bin are also available at up to 2 kits for $16 each. You can also pay extra to have textile and yard waste collected, too.
Initially a 13 gallon bin seemed large to me for 2 weeks of only compostable refuse. But I was surprised to see on their list how much waste is considered compostable, including cooking oils & grease (although with specific rules on how to dispose of them), food soiled paper towels & napkins, hair & fur, natural wood ash, and even some specially certified coffee pods and pizza boxes.* You can see the full list of dos and don’ts here.
The service costs also cover benefits beyond ridding yourself of refuse. You will get:
- A voucher to redeem a bag of finished compost each spring from a participating garden center starting spring of 2024.
- Discounts on delivery of compost, soil blends & leaf mulch ordered by the yard from our compost shop.
If the program really takes off, once they hit 350 Southborough customers, the subscription price would drop by 20% on the next bill.
So how does the service work?
The message explains that food can be initially stored in lined countertop containers, but eventually dumped into lined curbside bins. (Brown paper bags can also be used, but only when temps are above freezing.) The big bins should be put out by the curb the night prior or by 6:00 am on pickup day.
I’ll add a reminder that any trash/composing/recycling bins shouldn’t block sideway access. (That includes the section of driveways that lines up with with sidewalks.)
To learn more about the company/service, click here. To enroll, click here.
*For the pizza boxes — more commonly, those should be recycled. I’m not sure if there are any nearby pizza places with the BPI certified boxes. If you know of one, feel free to post a comment or drop me a line so I can update this post.
So residents are willing to pay $191 dollars a year to get rid of compost they can simple spread in a patch of woods, or pay $84 more dollars and get rid of all the trash and compost at the transfer station. Instead they want to add more heavy emissions truck traffic to the roads. Sounds like a good plan. The EV will solve the problem.
My impression was that residents (at least some) would rather that a composting option was available at the Transfer Station. But there isn’t one.
I understand, as residents we can certainly ask for that. It would be simple to add and its our transfer station. We certainly have the equipment to turn the pile every other day. We can already get rid of yard compost. Residents can also, for a one time cost buy a compost barrel. They could buy less food, that is now exspensive, maybe even eat it. Or simple toss it in the patch of woods, it’s gone very quickly and they have just composted. This is not a big problem. Spending money to get rid of food you spent money for doesn’t make any sense. Adding more large emissions free trucks to town roads make even less sense.
Although the EPA encourages composting at home (in a pile or bin) there is are common items that shouldn’t be in the mix including the following that are allowed in the pickup program:
Plus, home composting is meant to follow a specific protocol – not just be “tossed” in back woods.
Se more info here: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home
I probably will never win this debate, but that does actually make a 100% sense. Leave it to a government run agency to turn a thousand year old process of simple composting into a nightmare. Look at the metal dump found on conservation land in town, they turned a simple half days work of putting it into a dump truck and driving it to a metal recycler into a fortune of cost for tax payers. I just don’t want to see the added large truck traffic.
I hear you. I know that there are plenty of streets where residents are concerned about the big trucks, and I know that truck exclusions don’t stop vehicles that have destinations on the streets.
This composting problem goes away entirely with a few hens. Four or five hens will consume all your organic waste and produce lovely fresh eggs in return. Keep them fed and watered and safe from predators and you are golden.
Thanks so much for promoting this, Beth. I completely understand other commenters thoughts about setting up your own compost at home or getting chickens. We’ve done our own at home in the past and have considered chickens, but for a variety of reasons, neither of those options are working for us at this stage of our lives, so I love the option and am happy to pay for a service that can make composting more accessible to more people. I’m hoping more people sign up!
If you would just let me get chickens….