The nonprofit organization organically recycles the food waste into a special dumpster. Hilltopper Refuse and Recycling acts as a middleman and comes once a week to pick up the waste.
“If you look at your garbage, it’s pretty much half food, so it’s like how can we pull that stuff out to be used in a more beneficial way,” said Brandon Knudtson, refuse and recycling manager at Hilltopper in Onalaska.
Instead of diverting that food to a landfill, Hilltopper drops it off at Green Earth Compost. The waste is composted and turned back into things like soil.
“Instead of just throwing it away, why don’t we get some benefit of composting it and then putting it in our gardens, making our food fresher when we do grow it and so forth,” said Knudtson.
Hilltopper started this new service six months ago, and they’ve already diverted close to 100 tons from landfills. Festival Foods and People’s Food Co-op both utilize the service.
WAFER started three weeks ago, and they’ve already seen the financial benefits of their new service. They save around $70 per month due to lower landfill disposal costs.
“The cost savings is also important for our bottom line too and being able to divert those funds from waste to actually providing food that people can eat,” said Erin Waldhart, Executive Director of WAFER.
Hilltopper plans to expand its services to Minnesota and more parts of Wisconsin.
Article Credit: wxow