O-Town Compost is coming to Sanford, Lake Mary, and Longwood tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow’s the big day! After 30+ requests from the area, we’re getting our butt into high gear to bring our convenient composting service to Seminole County zip codes: 32773, 32701, 32750, 32746, 32771, and 32779.

People who subscribe before next Wednesday (1/20) will receive their first month of service free by using the promo code “SEMINOLE” when they subscribe. 💚

For you current subscribers, help us spread the word to your friends in Sanford, Lake Mary, and Longwood, and when they subscribe, both parties will get two free pickups thanks to our referral program.

The Truth About Plastic Recycling

Unfortunately, plastic recycling never was legitimate. You can thank Dow Chemical, Dupont, and the American Chemical Council, to name a few of those responsible for the single-use plastic clogging our eco-systems.

As Orlando’s community composter, we struggle to compost “bio-based plastic",” “corn starch-based plastic",” and “biodegradable plastic” everyday. The plastic packaging industry has put in considerable effort to greenwash consumers to make them believe this stuff is really “compostable.” It’s not, and a good rule of thumb: If it looks and feels like plastic, we can’t compost it and it’s not really compostable.

2020: A Year To Remember

Goals Achieved

In spite of a global pandemic, O-Town Compost managed to recycle over 50,000 pounds of food scraps in its inaugural year. Our team grew from one to four members comprised of Orlando’s most passionate and dedicated individuals. The type of people who don’t think twice before reaching into a bucket full of decayed food waste to pull out a rubber band or a bread tie.

Most importantly, the Orlando community has shown us that they support our mission whole-heartedly. Over 140 residents and businesses have chosen to align themselves with our values to keep food scraps out of the landfill. Considering that it was our goal to reach 100 subscribers in our first year, we blew it out of the water!

Hardships

Although, 2020 wasn’t all cupcakes and rainbows. Unfortunately, the pandemic weakened the economy enough that a dozen or so subscribers had to cancel service. The sad truth in our current economic system is that recycling food waste is a luxury not a norm. This is why we are pushing local municipalities and government officials at the City of Orlando, Winter Park, and Orange County, to begin to make plans for food waste recycling infrastructure and policies mandating large generators of commercial food waste to divert organics from the waste stream.

Also, let’s not pretend that composting isn’t laborious. We have to thank all the OTC staff and volunteers who put their sweat into the semi-manual process of screening finished compost and emptying ASP bins with pitchforks. I know my back needs a vacation.

September Composting Site Tour

It gives us immense joy to show people how their banana peels, paper towels, and celery stocks become black gold compost. We return to the story time and time again of how increased soil health can fuel a local food abundance and create a resilient community.

In the Fall, we gave tours of our composting site that doubled as a Permaculture tour. It was demonstrated how humans can thrive in a biodiverse system and passively grow their own food.

At the composting site there’s a wide variety of edible and medicinal plants growing, such as moringa, papaya, Tandora cucumber, katuk, Okinawa spinach, and Barbados cherry. A dozen or so subscribers attended and brought their friends and family members to learn about the composting process. Some went home with plant cuttings that they could propagate in their own gardens. Soil is truly life, and our health starts with the health of our soil at the base of the food chain.

Ambitions for 2021

We believe that we’re on the precipice of something big here for 2021. If we continue to meet our goals, by the end of 2021, we will be capturing and recycling 5 tons of food scraps every week. Increasing our capacity by 5x. This, of course, will be difficult to achieve until we land a larger composting site, and the right equipment, but a round of investment is likely in store for 2021, so we can scale.

Right now we’re enjoying the journey while O-Town Compost is becoming a household name in Central Florida. Nonetheless, our eye if fixed on the prize, providing the capacity to recycle all of the organic waste out there in Orange County, and to sustain a zero waste society.

Happy Holidays to the Orlando Composting Community

Dear O-Town Compost Community,

It’s been quite a ride so far. We’re proud to see that so many Orlando residents feel it’s necessary to recycle their food scraps, and chose us to make it happen. This community support means so much to us, and acts as a reminder every day that what we’re doing is making a difference.

Ultimately, O-Town Compost seeks to make composting as easy as possible, without pests or odors, in order to boost participation and fuel a county-wide movement. Imagine the Orlando metro area, with thousands of composting households. Whole neighborhoods putting out their O-Town Compost bucket, and admiring each other’s lush gardens fertilized by O-Town Black Gold.

It’s exciting the opportunity that composting presents as a viable solution to managing the 350,000 tons of organic waste that goes to Orange County Landfill each year. Sometimes this volume seems insurmountable! But we’re on track to grow into an organization that can handle it within 10-15 years. More importantly is the shift in the cultural mindset here in Central Florida. Our mission is to change how people look at their food scraps, and think twice before throwing a banana peel in the trash. This is going to take years, but that’s okay, because we’re in it for the long-haul.

Thank you for joining us along our crazy journey, and we hope you have happy holidays and a very merry Christmas.

Best,

O-Town Compost Team

PS. We’re offering composting subscription gift cards in 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year quantities. For more info, click the button below.

Give the gift of composting service these holidays!

Give the gift of compost service these holidays, and purchase one of our gift cards for 3, 6, and one year increments.

We guarantee your loved one will relish the warm fuzzy feeling of keeping their food scraps out of the landfill with O-Town Compost’s odor and pest-free composting subscription service. As long as they live in our service area, we’re happy to drop off a bucket and get them started, either before or after Christmas.

Our Black Friday Deal for the Environment

Here at O-Town Compost, we aren’t a big fan of the consumer holiday, Black Friday. Although, this year, we are. It’s the day that people in West Orange County can join the movement to reduce waste going to the landfill, and join us in striving for a zero waste Central Florida.

The meaning behind Black Friday doesn’t have to be about mindless consumption. It can be about becoming closer as a community through recycling our food scraps!

West Orange County, here we come! On Black Friday!

O-Town Compost would like to thank the 100 families and 6 businesses who subscribed for our food scrap pickup service in just our first year of operating. And, most importantly, we’ve managed to collect and compost close to 20 tons of food scraps, diverting them from Central Florida landfills.

Since we started, we’ve always had our eye on the west part of Orange County in communities like Winter Garden, Oakland, Windermere, Dr. Phillips, Ocoee, and Hunter’s Creek. Unfortunately, people who were living in those neighborhoods, and wanted to compost, have been outside our service area. Until now!

O-Town Compost is super excited to make the announcement on Black Friday this November 27th that the following zip codes will be serviced;

34761, 34734, 32819, 32836, 32837, 32821, 34787, and 34786.

If you subscribe on Black Friday, a special promo code will be applied for your first month free!

Also, for our current East county subscribers, our referral program still applies if you tell your friends on the West side of I-4 about our convenient food scrap collection service. When they subscribe and mention your name, both parties get two free pickups!

Creating a network of community composters

What happens when you tell your neighbor or friend about O-Town Compost’s convenient subscription service, and they subscribe? Well, first we make sure you and the one you told both get two free pickups as part of our immense gratitude and referral program.

Secondly, a network is formed of Orlando community composters. People who care about reducing their waste even when the price of garbage service remains the same. (One day we’ll have a Pay As You Throw program here in town). Thanks to the ones who subscribe, there are little pockets of residents around Orange and Seminole Counties diverting their food scraps from the landfill.

The food scraps start to pile up, and our routes become more efficient, using less fuel to collect greater volumes. For example, in the Delaney Park neighborhood, within a 7-8 block radius, you have seven O-Town Compost subscribers. Some of these people are going to use their share of black gold to create a lovely pollinator or vegetable garden in the front yard, making the neighborhood overall a nicer place to live for everyone, and inspiring others to be mindful of their ecosystem. Now that’s the beauty of community composting.

Take a Tour at O-Town's Compost Site

On the morning of September 26th, we will be opening up our composting site to the Orlando community for a tour of our operations. Come see how we have processed over 14 tons of food scraps into compost, returning nutrients to the soil. Also, there will be a permaculture component of the tour focused on growing local food and working with nature rather than against it.

It’s crazy to think how OTC has grown in the last year (hey 2020 hasn’t been all bad), and we hope to share the inspiration with everyone else. We’re not the only ones who want to see food waste recycling become commonplace in Central Florida.

After the tour, there will be a plant sale of mostly native Florida perennial plants that are easy to foster and maintain. Stepping out of the industrial food system and community composting go hand in hand, so we’re always trying to promote growing food in place of lawns.

The following tour times on 9/26 will be 10am-11am, 11am-12pm, and 12pm-1pm. Send us an email if you haven’t already to express your interest in attending. Masks are required for everyone’s safety, and you are welcome to bring guests.

Slaying Waste with O-Town Compost

Reducing Trash and Saving Money by Diverting Your Food Scraps

It’s hard to understand why composting is so necessary for the environment unless you take a trip to the face of the Orange County landfill. You witness the seemingly endless organic waste being dumped from dawn to dusk, the horrible smell of methane, and the loud beeping of bulldozers pushing trash into mountain-sized piles. It’s disheartening to say the least.

Our trash goes to OC Landfill on Young Pine Rd.

Compostable and recyclable material comprises between 70-80% of what goes to the landfill for disposal, meaning that the vast majority of what we throw away has a home either in your curbside recycling cart or with O-Town Compost’s composting program. This is the stuff that should be easy to divert right? Unfortunately, it takes a fair amount of education to teach people that there’s value in material even after it’s been consumed.

Also, not to let the corporate producers off the hook, but there needs to be greater extended producer responsibility (EPR). Some consumer products are just about impossible to recover, based on the way they’re made. DuPoint and Dow Chemical are great examples of Fortune 500 companies that would rather go to great lengths to get their single-use Styrofoam or plastic products labeled “recyclable” than actually shut down production and go a different route. Believe me, I’ve done consulting work for Dow Chemical’s Hefty Energy Bag Program, taking place in Cobb County, GA and Boise, ID, and it’s a perfect example of shucking responsibility and taking the path of least resistance to appear like they care about the environment. Green washing.

Despite the gloomy reality, a change is a comin’ (in the melody of Sam Cooke). The community composting movement is sweeping the country, and O-Town Compost is laying the ground work here in Central Florida to make it convenient for people to do the right thing with their food waste.

Right off the bat, after signing up, O-Town Compost subscribers experience firsthand a lighter and cleaner trash. The 96-gallon cart that most municipalities give their residents becomes WAY more than one needs. Less trash going to the landfill means huge cost savings for our local governments, longer life for our landfill, and a healthier environment. OTC’s subscribers should be rewarded with a reduced price on their trash services bill. For example, many Massachusetts towns have implemented a Pay As You Throw program, incentivizing its residents to waste less. Those who choose not to recycle their food waste, pay more. Basically, the program functions where households pay a variable rate for garbage collection depending on the size of the container they choose with the smaller the size being cheaper.

Saving $ with an OTC subscription

Having a black and gold O-Town Compost bucket not only reduces your volume of trash, but also saves subscribers money in the form of helping them buy groceries in right-sized quantities. Inevitably, everyone has food scraps that are inedible (banana peels, avocado pits, cucumber skins, etc), but it’s the uneaten leftovers and expired food sitting in the back of the fridge that really hurts the pocketbook. When you’re consciously separating your food waste from your trash, you begin to take note of your purchasing habits. “Maybe I shouldn’t have bought two containers of spinach, even though it was buy 2 for $5." Just one would’ve sufficed.”

In the next 10-20 years, our new norm will be to source separating food waste from the trash. For those who are getting on board early, it’ll be a lot less uncomfortable in the long run to adapt.

Composting 101

Charlie Pioli gives a presentation on food waste recycling, including vermacomposting and his reviews of different backyard composters. Why is composting better for the environment than standard recycling, and what is O-Town Compost able to accomplish on the community composting scene in Orlando, FL?

Slinging Buckets and Composting Orlando's Food Waste

O-Town Compost’s Charlie Pioli, gives you a look into Orlando’s community composting business with his big plans for the future. It’s never been so easy to recycle your food scraps into soil amendment while supporting the local food system at the same time! Join our movement!

O-Town Compost's vision for the future

It’s been seven months since O-Town Compost entered the Orlando compost scene and we’re happy to say that we’ve been busy! Four tons of food scraps have been diverted from the landfill and turned into O-Town Black Gold thanks, in large part, to our dedicated subscribers!

The composting network has grown to a brigade of residential and a handful of commercial composters, such as offices, cosmetic retailers, and a coffee shop. We have our first Zero Waste Wedding under our belts, and were set to do more until the great COVID monster stomped through town, making social gatherings a thing of the past. Instead of immediately going into panic mode, we decided to diversify our offerings, and the On-Farm Composting Service was born to address the manure management headache that some stables and ranches constantly face. With our first stable on board, we are able to divert roughly 1,100 pounds of manure weekly, and create a beautiful soil amendment with a waste byproduct. A byproduct that some stable owners unfortunately pay to be hauled to the landfill.

Still, with all our small stories of success, we’re not quite comfortable yet. We have a long road ahead to fully address the waste problem and a lack of regenerative agriculture in Central Florida. Small isn’t necessarily bad for a community-focused business, but we’re going to need to grow in order to make serious strides in Orange County’s environmental landscape.

Right now we offer food waste collection in 16 zip codes in the county, or roughly a third of the land area. The public should look for an expansion in the next 6 months to West Orlando (West of I-4). When you request service on our contact page, we take note, and tally the number of requests from each zip code with the aim to get out there soon.

Another opportunity for growth is building our partner network. For example, stables, ranches, landscapers, etc. Any environmental operation that produces an organic byproduct that can be composted. We offer our partners a sharing of ownership on the finished compost product, and a solution to their waste byproduct. Imagine, a decentralized network of local composting facilities around Orange County, rather than the traditional approach in the waste industry, where there exists a giant, centralized facility. The benefits of small are that a smaller facility requires lower transportation costs, smaller operational costs when you are dealing with less waste, and, most importantly, the finished compost stays in the community! This, my friends, is how we break the hold of industrial agriculture and Big Waste.

Say "no" to plastic, and go compostable

We are excited to announce that we are now selling compostable food serviceware items such as cups, plates, bowls, utensils, straws, etc. Additionally, we provide easy-to-use Kitchen Caddy bins that sit on your kitchen counter making it extremely convenient to add food scraps to while cooking. And the key to keep them yuck-free is to line them with our compostable liners!

We guarantee that our products are actually “compostable” not just “bio-degradable.”

We deliver to anyone in our service-area, with deliveries to our subscribers/clients being free. Otherwise, it’s a $5 delivery fee. Thank you for supporting community composting! Let’s turn Orlando green!

Composting Continues

Well guys, we've made it to the middle of April. 

We're still operating (food waste collection services are considered waste haulers, and that is considered an essential service). 

Food waste is being created now more than ever (we hear folks asking for MORE buckets because they are cooking more frequently). 

Some of you are gardening (it’s a good time to create a victory garden and stay resilient to shocks in the food system like this . 

Amazing connections are occurring (keep up the good work, everyone!).

We send all our best to the O-Town community - 

NEW SERVICE! - On-farm Composting

The equine industry has a significant presence here in Central Florida, and with a great number of horses comes a great deal of manure to be managed. At O-Town Compost we specialize in the collection and processing of people’s food scraps, but since the COVID19 pandemic started, we’ve decided to venture into a new areas and diversify our business offerings. Introducing our “On-Farm Composting Service,” where a wasteful byproduct is transformed into a valuable resource.

The average horse generates 45 pounds a day of manure, and closer to 55 pounds if you include the bedding! When I first read this statistic, I was shocked! Where does all this organic material go? Does it just remain on the farm or get hauled to the landfill?

Different stable owners do different things, but typically smaller stables spread their raw manure onto the pastures in hopes that it’ll fertilize and grow more grass for their horses to graze on. Whereas, larger stables, lacking the proper time or heavy machinery to spread manure, will opt for renting a dumpster to fill and send to the local landfill for disposal. One dumpster load can cost a couple hundred of dollars to haul, and contributes to the ever growing mountain of organic waste that notoriously comprises 40 percent of all landfill waste.

It just so happens that horse and cow manure are the perfect consistency to make a crumbly and earthy compost. Manure alone has around a 25:1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio being perfect for the active composting process. No outside feedstock is necessary to achieve a quality final product, but something, such as food waste, can be added without negatively affecting the result. The longer you let the manure dry out, the higher its carbon content becomes and it becomes better to add a nitrogen-heavy food waste.

Excitingly, O-Town Compost has begun construction on our first Aerated Static Pile (ASP) compost bin at Scala Stables located in East Orlando near University of Central Florida. Additionally, our services include regular weekly monitoring and upkeep, screening and transport of the finish compost, and technical assistance. Stable owners are left with a comprehensive instructional packet, and the ability to call anytime they’re experiencing a problem or have a question.

Advantages of choosing our composting method:

• Eliminate the time and expense of off-site disposal

• Produce finished compost in 60 days or less without turning the pile

• Destroy parasites, pathogens and weed seeds in the finished product

• Stop offensive odors

• Significantly reduce flies, rodents and other pests

• Improve your animals’ health

• Create nutrient-rich compost product that is safe to use on pastures and gardens

• Utilize the finished compost for an absorbent stall bedding

• Earn revenue by selling your finished soil amendment and create a return on your investment

• Enhance the appearance and value of your farm or stable.

If you or someone you know could benefit from this easy-to-use and environmentally friendly solution for on-farm waste management, please send us an email at info@o-towncompost.com.

Silly horse rolling around in the dirt.

O-Town Compost welcomes three more zip codes into its service area! 32812, 32839, and 32809!

Due to popular demand, O-Town Compost is expanding its services. Are we still not servicing your zip code? Send us an inquiry to petition for your area! https://o-towncompost.com/contact

We track the number of customers in each area of town and regularly study our routes to see where new customers could be added. 

O-Town Compost's Facts and Figures

Don’t discount O-Town Black Gold!