CompostNow wins Raleigh’s 2014 Environmental Award for Urban Stewardship

RALEIGH, N.C. - April 24, 2014 - PRLog -- Did you know that 40% of food waste in the U.S. is thrown away?  CompostNow, a community composting service based in Raleigh, NC, is leading efforts with community partners to not let food go to waste.  The company received the 2014 Urban Stewardship Award from the seventh annual Environmental Awards hosted by the City of Raleigh. The award recognized the company for their exceptional efforts in launching a business that lessens the company’s and community’s overall environmental impact. Approximately 200 people attended the April 22th awards ceremony, which was held at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh.

Trying to reduce the feeling of guilt when throwing away food, CompostNow was created to provide community compost shuttle services to homes, offices, cafe and restaurants.   Matt Rostetter, the company’s founder and graphic designer, said “it’s a no-brainer” [when it comes to making a choice between throwing food in the trash or composting it].  Knowing that there is no away, Matt started the company in 2011 when he kept hearing people say just throw that away and wanted to take action to change people’s behaviors about food waste.

In 2012, Justin Senkbeil joined the CompostNow team as co-founder and chief executive officer.  When asked why he became part of the company, Justin said “I think waste is silly [given my engineering background] and unnecessary.  We’re intelligent people who care about figuring this problem out and that’s what we’re doing with our partners in the community.”

In addition to closing the loop with food recycling, the company measures its impact by tracking how many pounds of waste they divert from the landfill.  To date, they have shuttled over 200,000 pounds of waste to two industrial composting facilities in North Carolina.  That translates into 100,000 pounds of soil being shared with community garden partners such as Interfaith Food Shuttle, Raleigh City Farm, and The Wedge Community Garden just to name a few.  The full list of current garden partners is available at: http://compostnow.org/garden-partners/.

When asked how is business going, Justin responded “An increasing number of individuals and businesses are looking for simple and effective ways to give back--and are choosing CompostNow and our partners. We are quickly becoming the go-to for compost related products and services in the Triangle--now helping thousands compost every day.” The company envisions its future as expanding into other cities in North Carolina and supporting similar efforts across the U.S. as a way to expand the impact of capturing food waste and nutrients, creating community and economic value, and sharing compost with local community gardens to grow food.

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For more information or to speak with representatives from CompostNow contact: Justin Senkbeil

About CompostNow

CompostNow is a compost service that makes composting easy.  They take what others throw away and make use of it in a way that others don’t.  They collect compostable materials, deliver it to facilities that convert it into finished compost and then they share it with local community gardens.  They partner with homes, offices, cafes and restaurants to drive change in how we think about waste and service thousands of people in eight cities across NC including Raleigh, surrounding Triangle cities, and Asheville, NC.  Their vision is that composting will be as commonplace as recycling.  Visit http://compostnow.org/ to learn more and join the movement.