Welcome to BioBag’s Community Heroes series! Each month, we will highlight community heroes that are making a difference in their communities and working to make their local environments cleaner and healthier.
This month, we are taking a look at No Waste Compost!
Founders Jake Wollman and Cameron Scott started No Waste Compost with the simple idea that nothing should go to waste and the goal of creating an affordable and responsible composting service for all of Vermont. Through No Waste Compost, they developed a residential program to help Vermont residents properly dispose of food scraps and organic materials that would have otherwise found their way to a landfill. Their service became even more important to their community in July 2020, when Vermont’s Act 148 began requiring all Vermont residents to stop sending food scraps to the landfills.
We spoke to General Manager, Jericho King to learn a little more about this organization.
What led you to start your composting operation?
King: We saw a need in our local community. Living in the small city of Burlington, many residents do not have the space to compost their waste at home as well as many other barriers. We set out to help all residents have access to affordable compost pickups and the demand quickly grew to nearby towns.
Who do you serve, and how can people get in touch with you if they want to start composting?
King: We serve the residents and small businesses of Chittenden County, VT. We offer daily 8 am-5 pm customer phone support Monday through Friday and active email support for customer assistance. You can find our contact information and answers to many questions through our website at nowastecompost.com.
How much organic material do you typically take in on a weekly basis?
King: We divert more than 17,000 lbs of waste each week from the landfill and compost it. This year, we estimate that we have diverted 770,000 lbs of organic material away from local and regional landfills.
Please give us one fun fact about you or your business.
King: By avoiding expensive hydraulic equipment, we are able to provide the lowest cost for compost pickups, but this means our employees do a lot of heavy lifting, and the work gets messy. Our drivers lift more than 3,000 lbs by hand each day in order to provide our services.
Feel free to add any additional information about your operation as you see fit.
King: We are currently the only low-profit hauler in our service area. This legal structure (L3C) ensures the community’s needs come first.
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If you would like to be featured in a future edition of Community Heroes, please email us at marketing@biobagusa.com.
