There’s money in trash

Hello and welcome to the Strawman - the newsletter that makes climate as easy as 1, 2, 3. A, B, C. Okay stop singing. Today we’ve gone digging through the trash to find some golden nuggets - get ready, it’s a good one.

Us humans are a wasteful bunch. From plastic to food waste, the average American produces 2.6KG of waste every single day with the country contributing 250 million tons of waste every single year. The World Bank estimates that the average human’s daily waste has increased 10 times over the last 100 years. And if my Amazon order history is anything to go by, we ain’t slowing down anytime soon.

A big part of all of this waste is the stuff we consume at home. In fact, National Geographic estimated that 75-80% of all household trash is organic matter that can be composted. Before we sacrifice our paper straws, we should probably see what we can do with our ‘organic matter’. And no, it’s not just poop.

What is composting?

You’ve probably seen it done before or maybe your school had a compost site growing up. But if you’re living under a rock (no pun intended) here’s a quick refresher:

Composting is a natural process of recycling organic matter into fertiliser. For example, think vegetable peels or leftovers that are put in a box with the right environmental conditions. In these conditions, microorganisms, bacteria, and insects break down organic material and the resultant output is a nutrient-rich soil amendment - in other words, a mean green fertilising machine. Add it to your soil and you get Super Soil. Okay fine, that’s not what it’s called but you get the idea.

You put your food waste to good use, you have awesome fertiliser you can use for your garden, and you feel good about yourself! A triple threat. But it’s not the easiest thing to get started with. Like all things that are good for you, it’s a little complicated.

In the mission to bring good marketing to climate and sustainability solutions, compost is next in line to be tackled.

Home is where the compost is

Sepura recently raised a $3.7m round to help make composting more accessible by connecting it with your sink. And honestly, just by making it look way cooler. Their slick product is integrated alongside garbage disposals and help you separate your compostable materials very easily. In theory, making the composting experience much easier.

That said, their basic product costs upwards of $700. No, that’s not a typo, it’s expensive to care about the environment. Or I mean, you could just set up a compost bin yourself…

It’s clear that if these products have any chance of impacting the mass market, they’ve got to get their prices way down. Otherwise, we’ll all be paying a pretty penny for a bunch of (compostable) rubbish. And that ain’t it.

Until next time,

The Strawman