Dive Brief:
- Mill, the designer of a kitchen food waste processor, is partnering with Compost Crew to provide its devices for free to residents in the Washington, D.C., area who sign up for collection service, the companies announced Wednesday.
- By offering the compact, odor-reducing devices, the partnership aims to win over people who may have previously been hesitant to hold onto unprocessed food scraps at home, said Compost Crew CEO Ben Parry. Mill’s at-home grinding and dehydration process means Compost Crew won’t have to conduct pickups as frequently as it does for customers who collect scraps in standard buckets.
- Compost Crew serves roughly 20,000 customers, including residents and businesses, across the D.C., Maryland and Virginia market. This is Mill’s second partnership with a regional organics hauler, following its collaboration with R.City in Phoenix.
Dive Insight:
Proponents of organics recycling can sometimes struggle to overcome the “ick” factor with residents who may be interested in reducing their waste but hesitate to keep food scraps at home between collections. Mill is hoping to overcome that barrier through its device, which dehydrates and grinds scraps to reduce their volume and neutralize odor.
The company has sold its device directly to consumers for several years, but it is looking to grow its footprint through partnerships. It has piloted its device in office settings and a multifamily building, where it supplied Mills to dozens of units.
Compost Crew, based in Rockville, Maryland, was founded in 2011. The company has expanded dramatically since Parry acquired it through an investment firm in 2018. Since then, the company has grown its fleet to include more than 40 vehicles and gained contracts with local municipalities, including the District of Columbia.
The company already offers weekly pickup of 7-gallon bins for residents at $32 per month and weekly pickup of 12-gallon bins for $39 per month. Some area municipalities, like Greenbelt, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia, provide discounts for residents who sign up for Compost Crew’s service. Other municipalities, like Frederick and College Park, Maryland, fully cover the service for residents who sign up.
Parry said Compost Crew is only reaching “a fraction of the people that could be participating in food waste recycling” in the region. His hope is to win over some converts.
“What we want to do is inspire people to make food waste recycling a part of everyday life,” Parry said.
Through the new partnership with Mill, Compost Crew will offer residents pickup service once per month or once every other month starting at $39 per month. Mill’s processed scraps take up significantly less space, allowing for Compost Crew to space out its collection schedule.
“It's a lot more efficient from a truck perspective and from a vehicle emissions perspective,” Parry said.
He said the program should fit into Compost Crew’s existing disposal infrastructure. The company operates six “compost outposts” around the area, which run aerated static pile systems. It’s also expanding a much larger facility in Frederick County, Maryland, that is permitted to process up to 20,000 tons per year.
“We’ve long admired Compost Crew’s industry-leading composting infrastructure, which allows them to compost food scraps at scale in a hyper local way, and return those resources back to the community,” Harry Tannenbaum, co-founder and president of Mill, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to introduce this new service together so more people across the DMV can reduce waste without the work.”
