56 MOTHER EARTH NEWS December 2016/January 2017growing, and more. “Recycled City has
a huge competitive advantage because
we’re integrating everything,” explains
owner J. D. Hill.Waste Not, Want Not
Here’s how it works: In exchange for
a modest monthly fee, Recycled City
provides a lidded bin in which cus-
tomers collect their food waste. The
filled bin is replaced every week, two
weeks, or month (depending on each
customer’s chosen plan) with a fresh
bin and a bag of bokashi — a combi-
nation of molasses, yeast, bacteria, and
dried mash from local breweries. The
bokashi accelerates the decomposi-
tion process while reducing the odor.
Besides the usual vegetable peels and
husks, the powerful bokashi blend al-
lows customers to include meat, fish,
dairy, and some food-contaminated
paper, plus more unusual waste, such
as fingernail and hair trimmings.
Commercial customers pay higher
fees to receive larger bins and sched-
ule more frequent pickups. Recycled
City’s collection routes extend for
miles, from downtown Phoenix to
Scottsdale and Tempe and well into
the East Valley communities.
Back at Recycled City, the food waste
is weighed and recorded. Every 70
pounds of waste entitles a residential
customer to receive 1 cubic foot of fin-
ished compost, but most homeowners
prefer to donate it to one of Recycled
City’s partners, a nonprofit farm op-
erating on adjacent land owned by
the local utility company. The 7 acres
managed by the Orchard Community
Learning Center (OCLC) bloom with
citrus trees, vegetables, fruit, flowers,
and herbs that OCLC sells at its week-
end market, at area farmers markets,
and through a community-supported
agriculture (CSA) program.
Things are done slightly differently
at Recycled City’s other partner sites
around town, including the down-
town Coronado Community Garden
and Dax’s Farm in Scottsdale. The food
waste collected in those areas — by
bike in Coronado — stays in those
neighborhoods, where it’s compos-ted locally and pumps nutrients into
gardens maintained by Recycled City
staff. The produce it yields is offered
through a CSA, the proceeds of which
directly benefit the company.
Recycled City currently has about
550 residential customers and 50 com-
mercial accounts, and collects about 60
tons of food waste every month from
homes and businesses in the Phoenix
metro valley — with only four employ-
ees (three of whom are pictured on
Page 55). Soon, collections will double
with the addition of new commercial
accounts, including St. Mary’s Food
Bank, which claims to be the world’s
first food bank, founded in 1967.
Both residential and commercial
customers desire more than a homefor their waste; they also want the food
that’s been fed by their compost. This
is especially true of commercial clients.
The chef at House of Tricks in Tempe
incorporates Recycled City’s produce
into a special dish every week — plus,
recycling its food waste has allowed
the restaurant to cancel one of its large
dumpsters. Residential clients can
choose to pay a bit extra for a delivery
that includes a CSA box of produce
grown from their composted food
waste, along with the usual fresh com-
post bin and bokashi blend.Putting Down Roots
J. D. Hill’s personal story begins far
from Arizona. He began gardening as
a young adult in suburban Minnesota,Top: A clean food-waste bin and a bag of bokashi await delivery to a residential customer along with
bags of finished compost. Bottom: The Orchard Community Learning Center’s gardens abut Recycled
City headquarters, where food waste is collected and stored in blue barrels until it can be composted.TOP AND PAGE 55: SLAVEN GUJIC; BOTTOM: CATHERINE SLYE, WWW.CATSLYE.COMp 55-59 Recycled City.indd 56 10/4/16 3:49 PM