![]() “We are becoming more independent of the larger waste haulers, to better control our supply of incoming feedstock.” The Compost Company found interest among several large generators, including the Music City Center convention facility (which generated an estimated 8 tons of organic waste last year, according to the Center’s annual report), along with several Nashville office buildings and food processors. “We have been diversifying our feedstocks by implementing our own hauling service and expanding into new areas,” Wansing notes. Over time, however, preconsumer produce waste has become less available as a composting ingredient, with more of it being used for animal feed by local farmers. The Compost Company also had been receiving mostly preconsumer produce from a local Walmart and Sam’s Club. Today, Compost Company has contracts to receive wood waste from the city of Clarksville, one major contractor (ABC Tree) and a number of smaller firms. Wansing also contacted several area municipalities, tree trimmers and line clearing contractors to line up sources of carbon in the form of tree and yard trimmings. “Before I started the company, I spent a number of months talking to area waste haulers and recyclers, to gauge local interest,” he explains. Wansing, who grew up on a farm and pursued a career in sustainable architecture, saw a need for recycling of organic waste in the growing Nashville area. In 2011, Edward Wansing launched the Compost Company in Ashland City, Tennessee, the first organics recycler in the mid-state region around Nashville. Read the Full ArticleīioCycle | Dan Emerson A Nashville, Tennessee area entrepreneur gradually grows the Compost Company, servicing more food scraps generators and expanding end product markets. Participants range from Opry Entertainment and the Hilton Garden Inn to Strategic Hospitality and Dozen Bakery. The museum is one of more than 50 Nashville restaurants and venues participating in Mayor Megan Barry’s first-of-its-kind Food Saver Challenge, which runs through May. “Adding an extra step to reduce what goes into the trash and putting it to something that could be a better use, like composting, which gets put back into the community and reduces our carbon footprint, just makes the most sense.” “We are such a big organization and we produce so much food - we do over 400 catered events annually - and the food that’s left over was often ending up in the trash,” Ebert said. 22, museum officials estimate, the kitchen staff has composted 10,324 pounds of material. The popular tourist and event attraction in downtown Nashville has ramped up its food waste initiative by giving its leftover food to the Nashville Rescue Mission and by starting a composting program. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has fed nearly 8,000 hungry people with excess food donated from its kitchens since late December, said Karl Ebert, the museum’s associate director of operations. The Tennessean | Lizzy Alfs Popular Nashville tourist attraction hopes to reduce its carbon footprint by donating food, composting and growing vegetables Once it’s collected and taken to get processed it comes back in the form of soil and is later sold as bagged compost at the market or used on area farms.įor more information click here. The waste collected at the market actually comes full circle. “They’re helping us find new ways to reduce our waste,” she said. She says composting is getting them closer to their goal of becoming a zero-waste facility by 2020. Tasha Kenard is the Executive Director at the Nashville Farmers’ Market. “So instead of a traditional plastic there are plastic cups that are made of corn and we can take and process those and turn them back into a soil product,” he said. They’ve even started to use utensils that can be broken down. Just since April the Nashville Farmers’ Market has composted nearly 80,000 pounds. Because they don’t have a place to process it on their own,” he said. And that’s going to give places like the Farmers’ Market or hotels, or restaurants, grocery stores an outlet for that. ![]() ![]() “In a perfect world everyone would take care of their own but we handle the commercial waist for the most part. Together, they are changing the way Nashville businesses collect and recycle. The Compost Company is the only fully-permitted commercial composting facility in Middle Tennessee.Ĭlay and Jeffery Ezell run the company, on a farm, located just outside Nashville in Ashland City. It can be treated instead of trashed,” said Clay Ezell, Co-owner of The Compost Company. “Unofficially anything that was once alive is compostable. Once you’re looking for compostable materials, you see them everywhere.
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