Baylor University is teaming up with Texas-based compost company, Moonshot Compost, to help divert food waste from piling into Waco’s almost-packed landfill, transforming the waste into compost, a nutrient-rich type of soil. “We’re able to really collect and redistribute compost in a way that really was new to us,” Smith Getterman, who is the Director of Sustainability and Special Projects at Baylor, said.
Moonshot Compost said about 22% of waste at landfills is food waste, so the two founders wanted to find a way to decrease the waste in landfills by starting this compost company. “The tallest point in the city of Houston is the Atascocita Landfill,” Chris Wood, who is one of the founders of Moonshot, said. “Landfills are different than we think they are. They’re just big piles of trash. That trash gets covered up, and when food waste goes to a landfill and gets covered up, it produces methane. That’s another source of greenhouse gases that are damaging, so these are problems we’re solving.”
Moonshot Compost drops off bins to its subscribers, like Baylor. The company will then pick up the bins filled with food and take them to compost facilities, where the waste is combined with other factors and ingredients to create compost. “What compost is, it looks like dirt,” Wood said. “If you’ve got good compost in your hand and you smell it, it’s just real earthy, but that dirt is really just holding in it a bunch of organisms that are really great for the soil.”