NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — By now, we've all memorized which night is trash pickup and which night is recycling. But soon, there could be a third option for Nashville residents — compost pickup.
"There are folks that are moving to Nashville from all over the country and they’re used to this kind of program," said Jenn Harrmon, the Zero Waste Program Director for Metro-Nashville.
For those of us just now digging into composting, keeping your own pile out back sure seems like a lot of work. Harmon is hopeful little green bins will make it that much easier.
"We are very excited to be offering 750 households compost collection at the curb," said Harrmon.
The pilot program will start next month. Participants will be selected from online applications from Davidson County residents.
"We want to make sure we’re capturing people that maybe aren’t as interested, or demographics that are under-served," she said.
It'll work just like weekly trash and recycling pickup. Only instead of your bin being hauled to one of the area's rapidly filling landfills, it will go to a composting center run by Nashville Composting in Ashland City.
"They take all the material, they blend it with wood chips to make the right balance of nutrients and ingredients for the composting process to work properly," said Harrmon.
Metro estimates about a fourth of all trash delivered to landfills could be composted instead. The hope is, a city wide composting service could reduce the rate in which our area landfills are filling up.
"All of your fruit and vegetable scraps, put those bones, those dairy products, the stuff that turns really weird in the back of the fridge you don’t remember about," she said.
In return, participants will receive bags of the composted material that can be used in home gardens and to improve the soil.
Even though only 750 Nashville households will be selected for the pilot, you can still participate even if you aren't selected.
"So you can collect all of your foods scraps at home, just like you would for this pilot, and then drop them off at one of those convenience centers at no charge," said Harrmon.
Those four collection centers are listed here.
Harrmon hopes, eventually, the community will get all the benefits of composting without all the hassle.
"It’s really easy, you can be really lazy about it," she said.
You can sign up to be apart of the pilot program or read more about it online.
