Living by himself in a second-floor South Philadelphia apartment in 2009, Tim Bennett knew he wanted to start composting. What Bennett didn’t know was how difficult composting would be in urban Philly.
“I thought maybe there was a place I could take [food scraps], and I couldn’t find it,” Bennett said. “And I thought, maybe there was someone who would come and pick it up, and there wasn’t.”
Composting is the natural process of recycling food scraps and other organic materials, which decomposes into a nutrient-rich fertilizer. Compostable items include food waste like eggshells and produce, but also non-food items like yard clippings and wood chips. In areas like Philly, where many live in apartments, it can be difficult to know how to start composting, especially if they don’t have a garden.
Bennett’s solution was building his own composting organization from the ground up.
“I put 100 bucks in a bank account and said, ‘This probably won’t go anywhere, but let’s see what happens,’” Bennett said.
Over the past 15 years, Bennett’s 100-dollar investment has grown into Bennett Compost, a city-wide organization centered around reducing food waste and making composting accessible for Philadelphia residents.
How it works
Bennett Compost’s main initiative is residential pick-ups. Through Bennett Compost, community members can purchase a five gallon bucket to hold compostable scraps in. Households place their buckets outside, where collectors will empty and compost them.
To participate in residential services, community members can choose between “basic” and “premium” plans. Under the premium plan, the compost bucket is switched after each pick-up. Both plans include a one month free trial.
“People who use that service also get some compost back if they want it in the spring or fall for use in their home gardens,” Bennett said.
Commercially, or in the cases of universities and businesses, compost is sold both as itself and as soils.
“We sell that compost, both as just compost and also we make some soils from that,” Bennett said. “We use it to make different kinds of soils that people can use for potting mixes or raised bed gardening.”
Residential and commercial pick-ups are done five days a week. Bennett said about 40% of these trips are done on electric bicycles. On average, each collector visits around 150-200 households daily.
“We’re picking up from 6,000 households throughout Philadelphia, over 100 businesses, including people like the Phillies, Drexel, Penn, hotels, and we’re keeping four million pounds of food waste out of landfills every year,” Bennett said.
The journey
Bennett said his organization’s growth “didn’t happen overnight.” The first step, Bennett said, was figuring out the logistics behind building compost bins, which hold and break down organic matter. His solution was striking a partnership with a South Philly community garden.
“I said, ‘Hey, you give me a little bit of space to build some compost bins and do some composting here, and I’ll give you as much compost as you want from whatever I make,’” Bennett said.
Bennett’s next task was finding out how to do compost collections, which was difficult, as he didn’t own a car at the time. To combat this barrier, Bennett rented pick-up trucks, renting at night to save money.
After these initial preparations, Bennett hung flyers and hosted events to try to gauge interest and participation. For the first few months, less than 10 people had signed up for the service. Bennett then decided to take the little money he’d made so far and put it toward attending a bigger event.
“It was this beautiful September day in Philadelphia, 75 degrees and sunny,” Bennett said. “So, of course, there are tons of people there. And I just had a sign that says ‘composting,’ and if you’re interested, give me your email address, and we’ll tell you how to sign up. And we probably left with over 10-plus people who were interested.”
Currently, Bennett Compost has a team of 25 full-time employees and offers services in every neighborhood of Philly.
“It doesn’t feel real half the time,” Bennett said. “I had no idea whether this would grow.”
Community outreach
Bennett Compost runs various initiatives aimed at maximizing compost use and sustainability while promoting community engagement. One of these initiatives is their prison compost program, which gives incarcerated individuals paid internships as part of early release programs.
John Williams, Bennett Compost’s collections manager, got his start with Bennett Compost through the program, first starting to work with the organization six years ago when he signed up for the program while incarcerated.
“I wanted to know about compost because it was something new to me,” Williams said.
Williams’ original connection to Bennett Compost was through Laura Cassidy, sustainability manager at the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. Cassidy and Williams built a relationship, and Cassidy eventually introduced Williams to Bennett.
In the prison composting program, Williams collected food scraps from about 5,000 incarcerated individuals daily and broke them down into compost. One of the highlights of the program, Williams said, was being able to assist those around him.
“It was helping the other inmates and changing people’s lives the best way I can,” Williams said.
Additionally, Bennett Compost works with local schools and recreational centers to turn food waste into compost.
For beginners looking for more information on how to start composting, the Bennett Compost website provides guides with instructions on how to determine how much compost is needed for different sizes of garden plots and beds.
Bennett Compost also sends newsletters, which was how Nancy Komada, Ph.D., director of student transitions in the Office of Student Transitions, found out about the organization.
Komada said while reading the newsletter, she saw an opportunity to tour the Bennett Compost facility. She went on the tour last spring and was amazed by the organization’s sustainability efforts.
“They took us around the beginning of composting and then all the way around to the end of it at the other side of the building,” Komada said. “And they had all the hay and the straw from the zoo that was left over from the animals. I was just like ‘Wow, what a concept.’”
Environmental benefits
Bennett said composting has a variety of environmental benefits, such as combating climate change.
“When you put food in the trash and it goes to a landfill, it breaks down anaerobically, and that is a fancy word for ‘without oxygen,’” Bennett said. “That means it’s sending methane gas into the atmosphere. Landfills are actually the third leading contributor of methane gas in the United States. There’s a lot of methane that’s coming off of landfills, and methane is a much more harmful greenhouse gas in effect of climate change than even carbon dioxide, which we talk a lot about.”
Compost, when put on the ground, helps plants pull carbon out of the atmosphere, Bennett said. The plants then produce oxygen, which is stored in the ground and released through the plants’ processes.
“They’ve found that if you are using compost, that the plants actually help the soil to hold more carbon,” Bennett said. “So, not only are you reducing the amount of methane you’re putting in the air, you’re helping plants and the soil to hold more carbon, helping with climate impacts and offsetting emissions.”
Making an impact
Bennett said a goal of Bennett Compost is to make composting easy and accessible, especially in urban areas like Philly, where people might not know how to start composting.
“I think my general belief is that people want to make the quote unquote ‘right choice,’” Bennett said. “They want to make the responsible choice. But if we make it too hard, too difficult, too cumbersome, they’re going to throw up their hands and be like, ‘I can’t do this,’ and they’re just going to go with the easier choice. So, if we make it convenient and easy for them to do it, then why wouldn’t they?”
The idea of making the “right choice” mirrors the very decision Bennett made when deciding to go for his dream in the first place.
“Part of what drew me to it at the beginning was not just that it was maybe an opportunity to start a business, but it was an opportunity to start a business that I felt would do work that mattered,” Bennett said.
