CLEVELAND — The food waste at West Side Market will soon have a second life. The City of Cleveland’s market composting program will provide food redistribution by turning food headed for the trash into soil and other products. The local group, Rust Belt Riders, was chosen through an RFP proposal to oversee the job throughout a six-month pilot.
“Our mission is to feed people not landfills,” said Dan Brown, Co-Founder of Rust Belt Riders. “I think that for the most part Clevelanders want to be a green city on a blue lake.”
The group estimates the market produces tens of thousands of pounds of food waste each month.
“In the United States about 40% of all food that’s grown will end up sent to landfills and we try and intercept that and put it to a higher and better use doing that helps to feed our community and prevent harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” Brown said. “This month we’ll divert around a quarter million pounds of material from going to landfills, but to put that in perspective, last year we were able to divert around 4.5 million pounds of material from going to landfills.”
Brown says his team is still wrapping up a waste audit on the market to determine how to best serve the historic landmark. Yet, he assumes they’ll be collecting compostable waste daily.
“When we are doing our best work, you shouldn’t notice that were there. So, the only thing that will meaningfully change is that there will be different receptacles here to house and capture the organic matter that otherwise could be composted and then we will be servicing that in the same way that the recycling company will be picking up their recycling bins. We’ll be exchanging those full bins for clean empty bins to ensure that we prevent any odors or attracts any pests.”
Though education comes first, making sure local cooks, businesses and now vendors are aware of the role they play in helping the city transform into a circular economy is key, which means reducing waste by keeping products and materials in use longer through reuse and repair. The mission is part of the Sustainable Cleveland initiative and Circular Cleveland’s core focus.
“We don’t want it to end at six months we wanted to continue throughout the many years for Westside Market but they’re also going to develop business models for us to provide composting access for all our residence so that’s our ultimate goal,” said Cathi Lehn, Sustainable Cleveland Manager.
