New composting service available in Windham this April

By Doug Banks

During the first week of April, curbside composting service company Garbage to Garden will be expanding their operations to the Windham, Gorham and Sanford communities after receiving over 400 inquiries. 

Garbage to Garden curbside composting service begins in
Windham in April. The launch includes a Garbage to
Garden-operated farm and composting site in Windham.
COURTESY PHOTO 

This expansion coincides with the launch of their own operated farm and composting site in Windham where they will collect compost from households and municipal level establishments and turn it into high quality Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association approved soil blends that are much more environmentally friendly compared to the big brand soil.

 
According to its President and Founder Tyler Frank, Garbage to Garden started in 2012 when he felt there must be a better way to compost than putting food scraps in a bag for the city to pick up. He and his roommates came up with the idea to start a curbside compost pickup service to establish a better way for people to compost.

 
Starting with his own pickup truck, Frank soon took his business to farmers’ markets in Portland and after six to eight months, Garbage to Garden had over 1,000 subscribers to the service. Now, after adding Windham, Gorham, and Sanford they now have a total of 13 communities, including a few areas in the greater Boston area who use the service.

With no outside investors, Garbage to Garden’s growth came from the support of the community who use the service, priding themselves on serving the people who believe in the benefits that come from correctly composting.

 
“We’ve wanted to have our own compost site forever,” said Frank. “Building a business with no capital in a capital-intensive business, you can’t stretch yourself that thin. We just never had the resources to buy land and all the equipment you need to actually make the product.”

 
Garbage to Garden eventually built-up enough revenue to start building a 106-acre farm, composting infrastructure, and greenhouse in Windham where they have acquired many subscribers to their service. This move will make it easier for the company's drivers while also accommodating the Windham community who use the service by having the pick-up service coinciding with Windham’s common trash pick-up date as well as possibly having a free drop-off location in the Windham area as well.

 
This move will also bring a community building aspect between Garbage to Garden and Windham as well.

“We’re looking forward to the opportunity to not just control the composting process and make our own soil blends; but also to have the educational aspect where we can open the farm to the community and build a playground for people to look at the goats and come to the classes and learn about composting and sustainable waste management,” Frank said. “People have often been trying to get more involved. They come to tour Garbage to Garden, and they say, ‘cool, but where’s the compost piles?’ and we say, ‘that’s at our partner’s farm and we can’t take you there.’ So, I know there’s going to be a lot of interest from the educational side.”

Along with bringing people to the farm, Garbage to Garden has also gone into schools and have trained school districts how to separate their compostables and recyclables and down the road hope to bring more volunteer work to the community.

One of the first 200 individuals who signed up for Garbage to Garden back in 2012 was Annika Schmidt, who is now the company's Marketing Director.

Schmidt says Garbage to Garden primarily operated as a waste hauler, originally collecting the homeowners compost from the curbside and bringing it to partnered local farms and composting sites for the actual compost process.

Although they will keep the partnership with the farms they have partnered with, the new farm in Windham will now allow Garbage to Garden to do their own composting along with many different possibilities.

“We’ve got a greenhouse that will be offering seedlings this spring,” Schmidt said. “It’s an opportunity to dig in a little bit deeper to the compost science to work on specialty blends that we could offer.”

It’s also an opportunity to have greater control over the entire process and in turn, will offer more possibilities to the people who use the service.

“The way it works is we partner with these other farms, and we pay them to deliver food waste, they process it into the finished compost, and then we actually purchase that back to provide that back to our participants,” Schmidt said. “So, all our curbside subscribers can get that finished compost back on a weekly basis.” But now with the new farm being built, this will open those curbside subscribers up to more possibilities with what type of soil they can purchase to use in their own garden and even get the chance to see how it is being made.”

Windham residents can pre-enroll for the service and Garbage to Garden also helps by supporting the local food systems with an extensive donation program where they and other participants can donate yards of compost towards supporting school and community gardens for people to grow their own food.

According to Schmidt, they also have a volunteer program as well.

 
“We have people here come help us bag compost, we do zero-waste composting events and have people come help sort with composting at those events,” she said. “We also work with a number of non-profits and organizations to help encourage folks to get involved in their communities by highlighting monthly opportunities.”

Frank stressed that what is being built is nothing close to a factory, it is specifically and wholeheartedly a farm. And he met with Windham’s town planner and code enforcement members before he bought the land.

“Somebody asked the question of, ‘is this a manufacturing facility?’ and I said, ‘no its agriculture, I’m making a farm’ and they we’re like, ‘oh okay good, because you’re in the residential farm district’ so I don’t want anyone to be confused about the nature of it because someday this will be my home,” Frank said.

To sign up for Garbage to Garden’s curbside service, its volunteer and donation work, or to get more information about Garbage to Garden itself visit www.garbagetogarden.org <