Leading up to the launch of Circle Compost in 2016 were many months of dreaming, planning, and working a lot of late hours to start preventing food waste from going to landfills in an environmentally and economically sustainable fashion. When we made our first ever food waste pickup on August 4^th, all of the work up until that date meant only that we’d put ourselves in a position to work harder than ever in the days and months and years ahead.

We see Philly as one big neighborhood made up of many smaller communities. As our neighbors throughout the city discovered the food waste pickup services we offer for their homes and organizations, we grew steadily from August 4^th through year end.

We’re thankful for everyone who has signed up so far – you made a decision to actively feed soil, not landfills, with a company currently doing 90%+ of our pickups by bicycle and donating 100% of the compost we create to Philly’s urban farms. We hope you see the passion we have for sustainability and recommend our service to your friends and neighbors. Every day we work at making our pickup routes more efficient so that we can burn calories on our bikes instead of fossil fuels while we collect your food waste and organic scraps.

We’re thankful for Grow Philly, our first 501(c)(3) partner, for working to build healthy, sustainable communities in Philadelphia – the compost we donate to farms run by Grow Philly helps grow food for food insecure Philadelphians. We’re also thankful for Urbanstead, with whom we started talking about a partnership toward the end of 2016 and with whom we are now partnered to make healthy soil out of Philadelphians’ food waste and keep that food waste out of landfills.

We’re also thankful to work with Sam Holloschutz, who joined our team in October of 2016 as Chief Sustainability Officer. As we mentioned in a recent article in The Spirit, the addition of Sam to our team was a tremendous step in our growth, and we look forward to growing our business together with him in the days and months and years ahead.

Speaking of Sam, he wrote a 2016 year in review blog post of his own that can be found here.

To all stakeholders in Circle Compost – our customers, urban farm partners, and neighbors in communities around the city – thanks for what you accomplished in 2016, and we look forward to serving you in 2017 and beyond.

– Michele and Dave