Composting Company Taking Food Scraps Out Of Boston's Trash
BOSTON (CBS) – Boston is one of the most "green" cities in the country and one local company is looking to make it even more sustainable with their composting business.
With more than 800 current residential customers, Bootstrap Compost makes house calls in 11 Greater Boston communities, collecting residents' organic materials, diverting it from landfills.
Each household fills a five-gallon plastic bucket with their food waste weekly. Bootstrap picks it up and leaves them a new container for the following week.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps make up nearly 14-percent of our total trash. When food is buried in a landfill, it doesn't get oxygen, which causes it to release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
But when it is composted, carbon sources are added.
"We've collected close to 600,000 pounds of food scraps, and saved a lot of greenhouse gases from going into the atmosphere," says Igor Kharitonenkov, who helped start the business. "Long story short, through composting you're mitigating that methane output."
As always, convenience comes with a cost: Bootstrap's services cost eight dollars for a weekly pick up, and $10 if they come bi-weekly.
All the apple cores, banana peels, coffee grounds and other scraps go to local farms for composting.
The Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester turns it into a rich, organic soil.
Each residential customer gets several pounds of the "black gold" several times each year.
"Certainly it's easier to throw away your food scraps, but is it easier on the environment?" asked Kharitonenkov.
"It's really giving credence to the notion of thinking globally while acting locally, and it all starts with that one apple scrap."
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