Nashville Business Journal | E.J. Boyer
Local entrepreneurs Edward Wansing and Clay Ezell are betting on the “garbage revolution” coming to Nashville. And they’ve landed a pretty big first client: Music City Center.
Their startup venture, The Compost Co., raised $165,000 in May to fund equipment upgrades at their 37-acre Ashland City composting site. The duo also signed a deal to compost the chicken dinners at the new convention center. In fiscal year 2014, the convention center served 786 banquet dinners and generated an estimated 8 tons of compostable waste, according to its annual report.
Until recently, composting in the U.S. has largely been led on the grassroots level, but now, municipalities and large, private industry waste producers like sporting arenas and grocery stores are seeing the benefits.
New York City announced plans this week to expand its residential composting program to an additional 33,000 houses, part of Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s plan to have all NYC residents composting by 2018. New York is one of a handful of large American cities that has passed regulations in recent years requiring residents to compost, the process that recycles organic waste (think, food scraps) into a nutrient-rich soil. In Seattle, starting this year, if you don’t compost, you get fined.
