BOZEMAN — Next time you have a banana peel, you may want to pause before you go and toss it in the trash. Just remember, one man's trash is another gardener's treasure.
“There is a slow decomposition rate. It can take up to 100+ years for a banana peel to break down,” Ryan Huckabone, an avid composter, said. "(That) is what can happen in an un-aerated landfill.
WATCH - Gardening Gold: How Bozeman Turns Food Waste into Fertile Compost
When talking about trash, you may have noticed a few smiley-face covered bins around the city of Bozeman. But have you ever wondered what the cute smiley faces stand for?
“Happy Trash Can alone last year? We diverted over 2 ½ million pounds of food scraps from the local community,” Ryan Green shares.
Ryan and his wife Adrienne Huckabone started a composting company called Happy Trash Can 9 years ago. They’ve collected millions of pounds of waste over the years. And you may think they have some fancy machinery to accomplish all that, but in reality?
“We collect our material into 64-gallon totes. And we, myself, Adrienne and the rest of our staff? Hand pick through that material to pull out all contamination,” says Ryan.
Ryan showed me some examples of what they pull out of their compost bins.
“The big culprits are always plastic, and then twist ties, packaging from produce, produce stickers as well. Please peel those off, we would greatly appreciate it”.
But all this waste kind of just looked like trash to me. So I asked Ryan: What exactly is composting?
“So what we want to do is divert the material from the landfill,” Ryan began.
Material such as lawn clippings, food scraps like meat, dairy, eggshells, veggies, and more.
“And then recapture that organic matter and nurturance. So, then we bring all that material to the site here. We mix it with leaves and woodchips to create a balanced feed stock,” says Ryan.
Ryan and his wife are practically experts on composting. So it’s no wonder the city of Bozeman came to them 3 years ago wanting to start their own composting program.
“The city of Bozeman and Happy Trash can have a public partnership where the city of Bozeman does the collection of organic material. Happy trash can processes that organic material into compost,” says Nick Ross.
All operations happen out of Bozeman’s convenience site. Ross, Bozeman's Director of Transportation and Engineering, tells me this program received a grant from the EPA. Allowing them to buy 2 collection trucks, up to 8,000 totes, and kitchen pails. This program launched at the start of Spring.
Ross tells me it's been going, “Wonderful. We’re over 1100 customers right now. And so, as that yard mowing and gardening season picks up? We see a lot of folks finding value in us being able to provide that service to them every week”.
A service, Ryan hopes folks will take part in. Because the more compost that comes his way?
“We’re getting them here on site, processing it, and then we’re distributing that finished compost back to local farmers, gardeners, and community gardens,” says Ryan.
This composting program costs $10 a month. To sign up, you can either head over to the Bozeman solid waste division, city hall, or visit this website: https://www.bozeman.net/departments/transportation-engineering/solid-waste/residential-collections/organics-collections#:~:text=The%20City%20of%20Bozeman%20is,paper%20goods%2C%20and%20yard%20waste.
