Landfills are the third-largest industrial emitter of methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more potent than the carbon that comes out of passenger vehicles. And since food and other organic waste accounts for 46% of global solid waste generated every year, food waste alone represents 8% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest contributor to global warming.
A key solution to these challenges is composting, a process that can go a long way in reducing both emissions associated with food and other organic waste, as well as reducing overall waste. While other methods of dealing with these emissions exists, such as systems like anaerobic digestion and ethanol production, composting is unique in that it helps to reduce emissions, while at the same time, offering numerous associated benefits, including improving a soil’s water retention, reducing nitrate leaching, and reducing the need for conventional fertilizer.
Armed with the understanding of composting’s environmental and social impact, between 2018 and 2019 Rubicon increased the number of customers with organics services by 53%, while increasing our organics tonnage by 46%. We also built one of the largest networks of organics haulers and processors in the country.
Promoting Rubicon’s Organics Hauler Partners
At Rubicon, we are proud of our hauler network. Solid waste collection is one of the five deadliest professions and these workers put their lives at risk each time they go out on a truck.
To honor them, we created the “Haul of Fame,” a weekly interview series with our hauler partners who serve on the front lines of our industry every day. To date, we have profiled over a dozen organics hauler partners, including Agri-Cycle Energy, American Biosoils and Compost, and Natural Upcycling.
In Virginia, Rubicon partnered with Natural Organic Process Enterprises (NOPE), a family-owned organics recycler and fellow B Corp, focused on reducing and reusing food waste in Richmond, VA. Our relationship with NOPE has helped us better serve Wegmans Food Markets, which had been searching for an organics provider that could help them move their Richmond locations towards zero waste. Today, Wegmans’ Richmond locations divert over 20 tons of organic waste per month away from landfills. At the same time, we are helping NOPE to serve the growing organics recycling needs of the Richmond community.
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To learn more about Rubicon’s work transforming the entire category of waste and recycling, be sure to download our inaugural Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report.
If you have any questions about how to start an organics program at your business, you can reach out to Rubicon’s Circular Solutions team directly at circularsolutions@rubicon.com, or contact our sales team at (844) 479-1507.
Ryan Cooper is a Waste Diversion Manager and the Organics Recycling Lead at Rubicon. To stay ahead of Rubicon’s announcements of new partnerships and collaborations around the world, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, or contact us today.
