Expanding Curbside Composting: A Big Opportunity for Framingham

The following is an opinion column and does not necessarily reflect the views of Framingham Patch

Residential curbside composting is on the move in Framingham. As a community, we just passed a major milestone, with 300 residential households now composting with Black Earth Compost (www.blackearthcompost.com). The achievement of this milestone is significant because it not only means that the monthly price of weekly curbside composting pickups just dropped from $17.99 to $14.99, because a volume discount kicked in, but it also shows that we have a growing nucleus of Framingham residents who are on board with a key environmental action which not only lowers Framingham’s carbon footprint, and turns waste into valuable organic compost, but saves the city money by diverting compostable waste from the trash stream. Climate change action progress and saving the city money are key benefits and align well with current city goals.

It’s important to estimate the scale of possible savings for Framingham if curbside composting were expanded.

Currently, compostable materials comprise up to 40% of the city trash stream. That trash stream totals about 15,000 tons annually and costs the city about $100/ton for disposal, for an annual total cost of $1.5 million. If all compostable materials were diverted from the trash stream, the city would save about $600,000 or more, as the cost of trash disposal only rises with time. It’s worth trying to get a piece of that!

So far, the curbside composting effort has been 100% local citizen action, with no tangible support or active involvement from the city, either at the Mayoral or Council level. The local group Energize Framingham (https://www.energizeframingham.org) has been a great driver of the effort, but it seems time for our elected officials to engage the power of city government to expand the bridgehead created by the community, to reap much greater financial and environmental rewards. There was a compelling presentation by Black Earth Compost to the November 16, 2022, meeting of the City Council Sustainability and Environment subcommittee, but nothing seems to have come from that.

Other cities and towns in Massachusetts have formed partnerships with Black Earth Compost and gotten substantial boosts in curbside composting participation. These partnerships can be extremely simple. One city of comparable size simply put its stamp of approval on Black Earth Compost after reviewing various composting companies. Then sent out an email to 20,000 residents letting them know. 300 participants in 2019 grew to 1200 in one year and then to 2,700 after 3 years, and because of that increased participation, the monthly cost dropped to just $10.99, and will drop further as participation increases. The city or town can simply get the word out after vetting the vendor and teaming up, and participation burgeons. The Department of Public Works doesn’t have to lift a finger.

Further, as the curbside composting vendor relationship with a city or town matures, other composting opportunities can be pursued. School cafeterias generate a load of compostable materials, and some municipalities are already bringing their schools into the composting loop. In Framingham, that would align well with the new Climate Change, Sustainability and Environment policy, adopted by the schools early in 2022. There would be great opportunities for student involvement, which is another real benefit of city expansion of its composting reach.

Finally, there is a lot of state and federal money available to accelerate climate change action, and some of that is aimed at composting. Already, other cities and towns have secured state funding to lower the cost of entry for their residents, by providing curbside composting bins for free. Brookline has already done that and brought lower cost composting to its residents through Black Earth Compost.

It seems easy and obvious for Framingham to simply reach out to other cities and towns which have already taken the plunge and amped up curbside composting, get the details of how they did it and engage in a win-win effort to combat climate change and save both the city and residents money.

The simplest approach is for the city to simply review curbside composting service vendors and endorse the best, which at this point would likely be Black Earth Compost. Then we would see a giant increase in curbside composting. Other expansions, such as to the schools, could follow at some later date.

Let’s get going here!

Geoffrey Epstein is the former District 6 Framingham School Committee member and former Chair of the Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability Subcommittee.