Johnson County city first in KC area to pick up trash, recycling — and now compost
Some Johnson County residents will soon have another bin to put out on the curb during trash and recycling pickup, but this one will be for food waste.
Prairie Village will become the first city in the area to offer curbside pickup of compost, said Meredith Evans McAllister, co-owner of Compost Collective KC. The Kansas City suburb is launching a six-month pilot program, where roughly 200 homes can set their food waste aside and have it taken to an industrial composting facility.
“Food waste has a really big impact on the environment, and it accounts for about a third of household waste,” said McAllister, who started Compost Collective KC with her husband in 2017. “So the benefit of using a service like this is people can do something really good for the Earth, and it’s really easy to do.”
In the United States, around 40% of the food that is produced is never eaten, and usually ends up in the dumpster. Food waste takes up space in landfills and emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
But when food is turned into compost, it becomes nutrient-dense soil, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers and reducing emissions from landfills that contribute to climate change.
“Making this a focus is really impressive for a city of Prairie Village’s size, to say we’re going to offer this to you as a resident,” McAllister said. “And we hope the pilot will be something they continue and expand to their entire city afterward.”
McAllister said Compost Collective KC started as a way to make composting convenient for anyone. So far, around 600 people across Kansas City put their food waste into a five-gallon bucket, which the organization picks up and takes to Missouri Organic Recycling.
This will be the group’s first partnership with a city. Prairie Village’s $18,000 pilot program will run from February through July, said Deputy City Administrator Jamie Robichaud. The city will test the program with two vendors.
Compost Collective KC will provide bins and pick up compost at half of the homes every other week. The other homeowners will be able to include compost with yard waste collection by Republic Services each week.
Everything that is collected will be taken to Missouri Organic Recycling, which composts around 32 million pounds of food waste each year. Kevin Anderson, one of the owners, said the waste will be composted over 45 days, then cleaned of any contamination. The company sells the compost, which is used on farms and gardens, as part of fertilizer mixes and other uses.
“A large portion of it goes to urban agriculture, which then creates food that goes back to the market, gets eaten, and then comes back to us,” Anderson said. “So we’re trying to complete that circle.”
Anderson cautions residents to remove any plastic and other materials, including stickers on fruit and rubber bands, from food before composting.
While citywide compost services have become more popular on the West Coast and in other major metro areas, Anderson said they’re starting to catch on in the Kansas City area.
“There are tons of potential benefits from composting that Mother Nature has been doing for thousands and thousands of years. But we interrupted that process by taking that material and putting it into a landfill,” he said. “I think the public is finally catching on and understanding more about food waste. So it’s exciting to see.”
Robichaud said the city will survey residents and examine the participation rate for both options, to eventually determine if residents would welcome a permanent compost pickup program. She said Prairie Village launched a similar pilot program in 2014, where around a third of homes participated. The city wants to see 50% participation this time.
Residents will have the option to opt out of compost pickup. The pilot program is being funded by the city’s solid waste fund.
“Any reduction in the amount of food waste is going to be a significant contribution to our support of sustainability efforts,” Councilman Tucker Poling said at Monday’s City Council meeting.
As part of the pilot program, Prairie Village will also offer residents glass recycling service.
In an email, Robichaud said she is not aware of any other cities in the area offering curbside compost pickup to residents citywide. Some school districts, businesses and neighborhoods provide compost services. Johnson County has been partnering with Olathe, Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission school districts to implement composting and recycling programs in schools.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
