CLEVELAND — Composting is a technique that goes back thousands of years. 

Now to reduce carbon footprint, the process is making a comeback. 

What You Need To Know

  • Composting is a centuries-old technique

  • Reworks gets close to 450,000 tons of disposed waste a year

  • The total compost process takes about seven months to complete

“We'll collect food scraps from customers like corporate cafeterias and households, restaurants, food manufacturers, anywhere where there's a lot of organic or food waste," said Ben McMillan, owner of Rubber City Reuse, a composting-recycling company. 

Composting is a centuries-old technique used to enrich the soil by creating a nutrient packed soil from organic matter like food scraps and yard waste.

“We say organics material; anything that grows can go, and it's important because we'll collect this material to keep it out of landfills," said McMillan.

McMillan said it’s important to keep organic matter like food scraps and yard waste out of landfills because they don’t break down properly. Summit County’s waste management service Reworks gets close to 450,000 tons of disposed waste a year, and more than 150,000 tons of recycled waste. There is currently one landfill in Summit County and several other locations that take in waste or process recyclables.

“We'll take the wood chips that we collect from local tree services," said McMillan. “We'll make some with the food scraps that we have here. Like the coffee grounds, the eggshells, pineapple tops. You'll see a lot of, like, flies and things like that. Those are actually really important to the composting process.”     

The total process takes about seven months to complete. Once it’s done it looks like soil. McMillan said since he started composting, he loves giving back to mother nature. Six years ago, McMillan started Rubber City Reuse, before than he says he would have never guessed he would be collecting and recycling food waste.

“My goal was to do something that constructive with those food scraps that I had leftover," said McMillan.

Before Rubber City Reuse, he was a chef with a taco truck, just looking for a more sustainable way to get rid of his food scraps. Now he helps others do the same.

“As more and more people become aware of where their waste goes, we see an increased interest in composting," said McMillan. “We're really getting back to the basics and kind of reinventing and reintroducing an old process.”

Both Cuyahoga and Summit County have recycling and composting plans in place.