Curbside pickup makes composting easy

Looking for a way to help the Earth—something easy you can do even while social-distancing at home?

You may have seen green bins at curbside in your Woburn neighborhood on Wednesday mornings. They’re part of a new way of handling food waste that’s simple for homeowners and good for the environment: industrial composting.

It’s easy: you put your compost bin curbside once a week and it gets picked up, just like your trash and recycling. You can put much more in the bin than in a backyard compost pile: soiled pizza boxes, bones, cheese, meat, pasta, and more.

Why is composting important? When kitchen waste becomes rich compost and is dug into the earth, it returns nutrients to the soil, cutting down on the need for factory-made fertilizers. And it helps the ecosystems in the soil hold onto more carbon—one step in the fight against climate change.

Already a backyard composter? You could share a bin with a neighbor and each put in the bin what you can’t put in your own compost pile. Live in an apartment building? Bins are available for renters, too.

Several companies offer curbside kitchen-waste pickup. Woburn customer Bob Rowlands is enthusiastic about Black Earth Compost (blackearthcompost.com): “It is so much easier than the backyard compost tumbler we had been using - I don't have to clear a path through the snow and brave the cold anymore. Plus, we can compost so much more - meat, bones, even grease.”