{"id":65905,"date":"2018-01-31T16:30:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T22:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=65905"},"modified":"2018-01-31T16:30:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T22:30:19","slug":"local-entrepreneur-expands-compost-pickup-business-to-corporate-clients-restaurant-chains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-entrepreneur-expands-compost-pickup-business-to-corporate-clients-restaurant-chains\/","title":{"rendered":"Local entrepreneur expands compost pickup business to corporate clients, restaurant chains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rebecca Fanning<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">The United States has a food waste problem. Americans throw more than 130 billion pounds of food into landfills each year according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And as it rots, that food releases methane \u2014 a greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change \u2014 into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>In Chicago, entrepreneur Jonathan Scheffel is working toward a solution. He\u2019s encouraging individuals and businesses to throw their food in a different bin, and to let him take it away.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Local entrepreneur expands compost pickup business to corporate clients, restaurant chains\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/252442080?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would say just to try it and see how easy it is. And try to get past thinking that it\u2019s difficult, or its smelly or that it\u2019s going to cause your house to collapse with rodents,\u201d said Scheffel, whose small business, Healthy Soil Compost serves over 400 private residences, offices and restaurants in the city.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In the past year, Healthy Soil Compost has announced a partnership with local chain Hannah\u2019s Bretzel, picked up thousands of pounds of food waste from the Chicago marathon and introduced compost to a 300-person law firm.<\/p>\n<p>The pickup service costs between $20 and $40 per month for residential spaces depending on the frequency of pickup, and varies for corporate clients, restaurants and events.<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by the ease of a compost pickup service, project manager Meagan Sherman decided to bring composting to her company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realized that there wasn\u2019t an outlet for young urban millennials to actually practice sustainable practices at work. It\u2019s such an easy step. If everyone who was downtown in the loop thought about it, I think it would make such an impact on our local community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Each month, Healthy Soil Compost picks up 33,000 pounds of food waste from homes, restaurants and offices around Chicago. Scheffel and his team bring the buckets to Nature\u2019s Little Recyclers, a company that uses traditional composting and worm-powered methods to break down the variety of materials into rich soil. That 33,000 pounds of food waste produces 330 pounds of \u201ccaviar compost,\u201d rich soil that they sell for $29.99 for 10 pounds.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt\u2019s cool that awareness is building and that big companies actually see the worm farm as a viable option to recycle food waste,&#8221; said Scheffel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo above: Healthy Soil Compost is growing. The service adds 1,000 pounds of food waste to its pickup schedule each month. (Rebecca Fanning\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rebecca Fanning Medill Reports The United States has a food waste problem. Americans throw more than 130 billion pounds of food into landfills each year according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And as it rots, that food releases methane \u2014 a greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change \u2014 into the atmosphere. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":65906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3912],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2017"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Local entrepreneur expands compost pickup business to corporate clients, restaurant chains - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-entrepreneur-expands-compost-pickup-business-to-corporate-clients-restaurant-chains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Local entrepreneur expands compost pickup business to corporate clients, restaurant chains - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Rebecca Fanning Medill Reports The United States has a food waste problem. Americans throw more than 130 billion pounds of food into landfills each year according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And as it rots, that food releases methane \u2014 a greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change \u2014 into the atmosphere. 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