The Compost Plant is More Than a Diversion for Two Waste Stream Entrepreneurs

Nat Harris and Leo Pollock Embrace a Mission-Driven Messy Job: Creating Compost from Food Waste

So, are chicken carcasses, eggshells and cantaloupe rinds trash or something more valuable? I discovered the answer by meeting with Leo Pollock and Nat Harris, co-founders of The Compost Plant, whose mission is to close the loop in the food system by producing compost and soil blends that help gardeners and farmers grow more local food.

Getting people to recognize food waste as a valuable resource—rather than garbage—is challenging, acknowledges Leo. But customer by customer, bin by bin, The Compost Plant is doing that, by producing and selling Rhody Gold™ products that include premium soils and farm-fresh compost.

On an unseasonably warm, yet rainy, winter day, I accompany Leo on his collection circuit. After he fills the truck’s water tank, we head to a loading dock at Rhode Island Hospital, where The Compost Plant collects nearly a ton of food waste each day. There, four (64- gallon) bins, filled with a wet, messy slurry of food waste, await us. As the hydraulic lift prepares to dump the first full bin into the custom- designed truck’s empty bed, I take Leo’s timely advice to jump away to avoid being splashed by the slurry. Once the bins are dumped, he power-washes them twice before we return them to the loading dock.

As we head to several Dave’s Marketplace stores, where bins contain fruit rinds, imperfect produce, stale bread and unsold prepared foods, Leo describes his time on the truck with a laugh: “Rinse and repeat.”

“We’re 100% behind [composting with The Compost Plant]; we’re very committed to it,” says Kevin Saccoccia, deli and prepared foods supervisor for all 10 Dave’s Marketplaces in Rhode Island. Describing Leo and Nat as “great to work with,” Saccoccia intends to have all the stores’ food waste composted, when The Compost Plant has the capacity to do so; currently five stores are on the crew’s route for pickup. Using The Compost Plant versus trash pickup—the stores’ earlier approach for handling food waste, barring some bakery items that went to local food pantries—is probably revenue neutral, he adds.

Turning food waste into consistent, inherently valuable products is doubly beneficial. The Compost Plant diverts food waste (for a fee) and landscapers’ wood chips, branches, etc. (for free) from the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), colloquially called “the landfill,” and creates healthier soil for future crops.

Through this process, The Compost Plant diverted slightly more than 2,500 tons of food waste in 2018 from the landfill, a tiny fraction of the food waste delivered there. The 2015 Rhode Island Solid Waste Characterization Study reports that 100,029 tons of food waste, representing 19% of all municipal and industrial/commercial/ institutional waste, went to the landfill during one year. (Only paper waste, at nearly 24%, exceeded food waste.)

Days later, I join Nat at Buxton Hollow Farm in North Smithfield, where The Compost Plant currently leases some 10 acres of land for composting, with plans to expand its footprint; additional composting happens at a site in Massachusetts. With Nat’s dog, Hooper, frolicking by his side, we tour the piles—or windrows—of food waste, grass clippings and manure (nitrogen) mixed with wood chips, leaves, branches and fungi-rich mushroom compost (carbon). It takes about a year for the nitrogen- and carbon-rich ingredients to break down into compost, says Nat. Steam rises as Nat pulls from a windrow a thermometer registering the ideal temperature of 140°F. “The microbes are doing their thing; it’s an awesome process,” he says. To my surprise, the compost piles are generally odor-free; my over-active nose only detects a slightly sweet aroma of overripe produce. Getting the mix of about 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen for perfect composting is, Nat says, “a little bit of science, a little bit of art, a little bit of stink.”

“Composting is in line with [our] vision of doing what is best for the environment and a sustainable future for all,” says Jonathan Cambra, director of culinary operations and executive chef for Roger Williams University (RWU) Dining Services and Bon Appetit Management Company (food concessioner to RWU). “By participating in this program, we are helping divert compostable foods from the landfill and turning it into usable product again. It just made sense to us.” RWU has worked with The Compost Plant since July 2014; in 2018, The Compost Plant picked up more than 104 tons of food waste from RWU, a 13% increase from 2017’s collections of more than 92 tons.

Rhode Island’s food waste problem isn’t unique. From farm to table, 30 to 40% of the annual available food supply is lost every year in the United States. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that at 133 billion pounds of food, or 429 pounds per person, per year.) Global numbers are staggering: The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 2 billion people could be fed by the 1.2 billion tons of food, or 30% of the planet’s food, wasted each year.

Educating customers’ kitchen staff about sorting is critically important, too. With RWU composting all pre- and post-consumer waste, “Teaching our staff to monitor what is going into the compost bins is essential,” says Cambra. “When we first started, some bins had non-compostable items mixed in . . .  and could not be taken by The Compost Plant . . .  [they] provided us with laminated posters that we posted throughout our dining halls and kitchens for our staff.”

Although they both currently rely on their wives as household breadwinners, both Nat and Leo are determined to persevere. “It’s exciting; Rhode Island could be a real innovator and leader to scale up enough to show others how to do this,” Leo insists. “We could be a model for waste collection and handling, and a model for composting a more consistent end-product whose inputs are inherently valuable. Composting is underused nationally; in New England, Vermont followed by Massachusetts are best at composting. It’s the less sexy part of the food system.”

Nevertheless, Drake Patten, owner of Cluck!, couldn’t be more enthusiastic about The Compost Plant and its Rhody Gold products. Selling all of those products except Grow Master (premium super soil), Cluck! regularly sells out of Original Gold (compost) and Potters Pleasure (premium potting soil). The Liquid Squid Fertilizer was an unexpectedly popular Christmas gift this past Christmas.

“As a micro-business owner focused on supporting the intimate and radical act of growing your own food, I feel it’s essential to work as locally as possible . . .  I could not ask for anything more perfect than selling The Compost Plant products,” says Drake. “I trust The Compost Plant; that matters, because my customers trust me.”

The Compost Plant is a small but ambitious player within Li’l Rhody’s waste disposal opportunities. Its two trucks, each making about 25 stops, pick up between five and eight tons of food waste every day between their total crew (five full-time, including Nat and Leo, and one half-time). In contrast, approximately 65 waste-hauling trucks traverse Rhode Island’s roads and highways each day; collectively, they pick up many more tons of waste destined for the landfill, including approximately 361 tons of food waste each day, according to Jared Rhodes, RIRRC’s director of policy and programs. While The Compost Plant is making progress, Leo acknowledges that they still have a long way to go to tackle the issue.

“Rhode Island could be a great model. We’re a small and densely populated state, with a number of good waste resources, including seafood- and ocean-based food waste, as well as land-based food waste and manure,” says Nat. “We have the diversity of ingredients that make Rhode Island a good location for [commercial] composting.”

What do these two entrepreneurs envision for the future? Living wages for each of them, more sophisticated equipment, exciting research opportunities, significant revenue growth in product sales and a growing awareness that food waste is a valuable—and valued—commodity!

For more information on The Compost Plant pickup programs and where to purchase their products, visit CompostPlant.com.