Starting on Aug. 1, Healthy Soils Healthy Seas Rhode Island’s curbside pickup of food scraps will be available at an annual price of $99, compared with the current cost of $253.

The reduced cost of the residential composting service for residents of Portsmouth, Newport, Middletown, Jamestown, and Bristol is made possible by financial support from 11th Hour Racing, Clean Ocean Access (COA) and new project partner Black Earth Compost. Making the multi-year Healthy Soils Healthy Seas Rhode Island initiative more affordable will help position the community as a leader for environmental stewardship, the program’s leaders say.

Rhodeside Revival is excited to hand off the next phase of the project, said co-owners Miguel Costa and Conor MacManus. “When we formed Rhodeside Revival, there weren’t any options in the Ocean State for residential curbside composting, and we took action, with the tremendous support from 11th Hour Racing and project leadership of Clean Ocean Access,” they said in a statement. “Healthy Soils Healthy Seas Rhode Island is the right thing for the Ocean State, and we will enjoy watching Black Earth Compost take over our operations and advance this into the next chapter”.

Black Earth Compost is a Massachusetts-based business with nearly 23,000 customers. “We are excited to bring our passion from the Bay State into the Ocean State and become a project partner within Healthy Soils Healthy Seas Rhode Island,” said owner Conor Miller. “All customers will receive excellent customer service and we look forward to working together to achieve the goal of 2,000 households diverting food scraps by the end of the year across the five communities of the project”

Eva Touhey, program manager for Clean Ocean Access, said improving ocean health starts on land, and the organization wants to make composting a transformational behavior change that’s possible for everyone. 

“To date, the project has diverted 1,200 tons of food scraps from entering the landfill,” she said. “We are grateful for the hard work of Rhodeside Revival and excited to advance the Healthy Soils Healthy Seas Rhode Island initiative with Black Earth Compost across the entire state in the years to come. Rhode Island puts over 100,000 tons of food scraps into the landfill each year, it should be composted and used to create healthy soils which in turn creates healthy seas, and Clean Ocean Access is committed to making that happen.”

For more information, visit cleanoceanaccess.org.