We have just learned about an innovative nutrient-cycling enterprise operating in Maine and Massachusetts, USA. Called Garbage to Garden, this for-profit social enterprise creates multiple benefits for farmers, over 10,000 families, and taxpayers. It adds scale, efficiency, and economics to the process of household garbage disposal, composting, and garden management.
Once per week, residents who subscribe to the service place a bucket of organic garbage (such as food and veggie waste) on the curb outside their home. 
A Garbage to Garden truck drives by and swaps the bucket for a clean one, and provides a bag of fresh compost if the subscriber has requested it. Specially branded Garbage to Garden compost buckets are available at many retail shops, such as Now You’re Cooking on Front Street in the town of Bath.
The wastes Garbage to Garden collects from many towns are the delivered to a central composting site, at Benson Farm in the town of Gorham. The farm is paid to process the materials, and a portion of the finished compost is purchased back by Garbage to Garden to deliver to the subscribers during the next weekly bucket swap.
While the household program actually uses just a small portion of the compost produced at Benson Farm, it provides a key incentive for home-gardening residents to join the program. The rest of the compost is sold to local farms and garden centers.
In addition to food waste Garbage to Garden also collects used cooking oil, which the company Maine Standard Biofuels turns into biofuel and soap — the same soap Garbage to Garden then purchases and uses to wash their compost buckets!
The many social and economic values (#NutrientValueChains) fueling this enterprise include: reducing volume of waste in landfills, reducing related greenhouse gas emissions, providing valuable compost to farms, improving nutritional quality of garden and farm soils, reducing household garbage disposal costs, connecting urban residents with tangible nutrient-nutrition-nourishment cycles, and education through school programs for engaging children in both the science and economics of Nourishment Economies.
Garbage to Garden employs twenty full-time and eighteen part-time and seasonal staff. A volunteer program enables residents to help with sponsored community events or at Garbage to Garden’s headquarters in the city of Portland, receiving free services in the process. Garbage to Garden is fully funded by the monthly fees paid by subscribers.
This innovative nutrient-cycling business celebrated its 6th anniversary in 2018. It also won the recent Greenlight Maine prize, which should assist further in its growth.
Great article! Im going to subscribe!
Update September 2019: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awards Garbage to Garden is 2019 business Merit award. 21 tons of food scraps recycled per day, the most subscribed composting company in the United States!
From the EPA award announcement: “Garbage to Garden is a regional food scrap recycler, providing curbside composting throughout Maine and the Boston area. Serving more than 8,000 households, businesses, schools and events, the nine-year-old Garbage to Garden collects an average of 21 tons of food scraps daily and is recognized as the most subscribed to composting company in the country. Households who subscribe get buckets to fill with compostables that Garbage to Garden takes away weekly. The organization also installs raised bed gardens to more than 100 urban and suburban gardeners yearly. For hundreds of businesses, schools, and universities, as well as local municipalities, Garbage to Garden provides commercial composting and recycling while educating students and employees on composting and recycling. The business started in founder Tyler Frank’s apartment and expanded into 1,000 square feet, where Tyler lived for six months in a tent to save money for equipment. Four years ago, it moved to a 5,000-square-foot building and now needs a larger facility. A second location recently opened in Saugus. More event organizers each year look to Garbage to Garden to examine their waste and find alternatives that can be composted and recycled. It provides these services to some of New England’s biggest festivals and hundreds of smaller events. Garbage to Garden’s volunteer program allows lower income participants to earn free composting service. The business donates dozens of yards of compost a year to school and community gardens. Garbage to Garden’s curbside composting has become much greater than the sum of its parts. Its work has been recognized locally and nationally.”
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/maine-citizens-and-organizations-recognized-epa-environmental-achievements