Ban on materials provided to us outside of our buckets (with the exception of pizza boxes) to take effect Monday, April 3rd, 2023

Effective Monday, April 3rd, 2023, we will no longer be accepting any materials provided to us outside of our buckets, regardless of whether they are on the Acceptable side of our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials at www.GBCompost.com/List), with the exception of pizza boxes (which subscribers may continue to provide to us in unlimited numbers and simply set beside their buckets for us on Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup days).

PLEASE NOTE: This update should not be interpreted to mean that we no longer accept the plain/matte paper or Fall leaves listed as Acceptable on our current List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials, but rather that we will only accept these materials inside our buckets going forward.

Additionally (and in conjunction with the above update), going forward, Residential and Commercial subscribers of ours will only receive weight-based credit on our Leaderboard (www.GBCompost.com/Leaderboard) and under our Waste Reduction Rewards Program (www.GBCompost.com/Rewards) for materials provided to us inside our buckets.

What this means is that while subscribers may provide pizza boxes to us outside of our buckets (and while we encourage them to do so, as most pizza boxes are not recyclable, due to being food-soiled), we will not be providing weight-based credit to our subscribers for them (assuming we receive them after 4/2/2023), unless they are provided to us inside our buckets (which will likely require them to be cut or torn into pieces small enough to fit inside said buckets).

Please note that if we arrive to perform a Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup for any subscriber on or after April 3rd, 2023 and find any materials other than pizza boxes left for us outside of our buckets, such materials will be left on the subscribers property, without further explanation.

This update to our policies is being made in furtherance of our plans to streamline/simplify our services and optimize our business as much as possible.

Any subscribers concerned about whether this update will result in their Greener Bay Compost buckets being filled faster than usual are hereby reminded that:

• Once-a-Month Residential subscribers have the option of upgrading to an Every-Other-Week/2x-a-Month Bucket Swap schedule with us at any time
• Every-Other-Week/2x-a-Month Residential subscribers and Commercial subscribers have the option of subscribing for extra buckets with us at any time (with no limit on the number of extra buckets they can subscribe for)

If you are interested in upgrading your current service with us to receive more Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups each month, or in subscribing for extra buckets with us, please contact us at www.GBCompost.com/Contact at your earliest convenience and we will make your service change as easy as possible.

If you have any questions or concerns about the information/updates above, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are always here to help!

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting!

MAJOR UPDATE to our Paper/Cardboard Policy (and a Related Update to Our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials)

Effective immediately, our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials (which can be viewed and downloaded at www.GBCompost.com/List) has been updated, for the second time this week, due, in part, to feedback we received on the last update we made to it, as well as to correspond with a MAJOR UPDATE we have just made to our paper/cardboard policy.

PLEASE DELETE AND/OR DESTROY ANY PREVIOUS COPIES OF THE LIST YOU MAY POSSESS AND REPLACE WITH OUR NEW ONE.

The most major changes to the List today have to do with our new policy on paper and cardboard items:

First and foremost, what most people would consider cardboard (the “corrugated” kind, with air pockets built into it) is now on the Not Acceptable side of the list. As such, cardboard is effectively banned by us.

We have made the decision to ban cardboard for several reasons, chief among them being that a significant percentage of the cardboard we have been receiving as of late has been contaminated with tape, unacceptable chemical-based glues, and small pieces of styrofoam.

Going forward, we recommend all our subscribers recycle their cardboard in the recycling bins provided by their Municipality, landlord, or private waste hauler.

Secondly, with regard to paper, we are moving to a very specific list of plain/matte paper items we will accept, which includes only the following items:

• Coffee filters
• Egg cartons
• Napkins
• Newspaper (no shiny inserts!)
• Paper bags (including fast food & grocery store bags)
• Paper plates
• Paper towels
• Pizza/food boxes and frozen pizza “rounds”
• Tea bags/tags (no staples and no “pyramid” bags!)
• Toilet paper/paper towel tubes

We are limiting our acceptance of paper to the above items for several reasons. Most notably, we would like to focus, going forward, on composting paper items that are not traditionally recyclable (or accepted by our Brown County recycling authorities), such as greasy/food-soiled items or items with non-recyclable paper (such as toilet paper or paper towels) stuck to them. Secondarily, we would like to focus on composting paper items that are the easiest for us to process and which pose the lowest risk of contamination to our compost.

PLEASE NOTE: As before, we are still not accepting any paper that is shiny/glossy (meaning it has been coated with petroleum-based chemicals).

Also, as a reminder, we are still not accepting any paper that falls into the wax, “baking”/parchment, or “non-stick” category, including, but not limited to, butter wrappers or cupcake/muffin liners (even if they appear to the naked eye to be “plain” or “matte”).

We are also still not accepting receipts, which are made of toxic “thermal paper” (which is made with the chemical known as BPA).

Accordingly, we ask that our subscribers remove any of the above, Not Acceptable paper they may find attached to or inside of the paper items we will accept, prior to placing acceptable items in their Greener Bay Compost buckets.

To make compliance with our new paper and cardboard policy as easy as possible, we recommend that all subscribers assume their paper or cardboard items are Not Acceptable, unless they specifically find them listed on the Acceptable side of our updated List.

Regarding other changes we’ve just made to our List (which are really just minor clarifications), we have:

• Clarified that we accept both solid and soft dairy, meaning we will accept “soft” items such as cottage and ricotta cheese, yogurt, cream cheese, etc., in addition to “solid” items, such as cheese slices, cheese powder, blocks of cheese, shredded cheese, etc.
• Clarified that the list of vegetables we accept include “root veggies” like potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc., as well as beans/legumes (a category which includes dry beans, lentils, etc.)
• Clarified that flours and cake mixes are among the grain-based materials we will accept, in addition to things like breads, cereals, chips, crackers, pastas, taco shells, etc.

In conclusion, we would like to state that our paper/cardboard policy change is not a “knee-jerk decision” on our part and has been in consideration for many months now.

A major driver behind this change is our ongoing desire to make our program as simple as possible for both us and our subscribers. We also have a strong desire to combat contamination, protect the quality of the compost we produce, make our work more efficient, keep our operational costs down, and keep our prices as low as possible for our subscribers.

PLEASE NOTE: For the purposes of our Waste Reduction Rewards Program (www.GBCompost.com/Rewards), and from now through the end of April 2023, we will not be considering buckets “contaminated” (or giving zero credit for the weight of their contents) simply because they may contain a paper/cardboard item we were accepting of just prior to this most recently policy change. That said, we will begin enforcing our new paper/cardboard policy strictly with regard to any buckets we pick up on or after 5/1/2023. Accordingly, if any buckets we pick up on or after this date are found to contain Not Acceptable paper or cardboard items, they will be considered “contaminated” and the subscriber providing them to us will receive no weight-based credit for the contents of such buckets.

If there is any confusion about our updated List or our new paper/cardboard policies, or if there are any questions or concerns about them, subscribers are strongly encouraged to Contact Us with their questions/concerns, and we will respond promptly.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to make our program (and our company) better for you every day! We really appreciate it.

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting!

Our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials has been updated!

Effective immediately, our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials (which can be viewed and downloaded at www.GBCompost.com/List) has been updated!

PLEASE DELETE AND/OR DESTROY ANY PREVIOUS COPIES OF THE LIST YOU MAY POSSESS AND REPLACE WITH OUR NEW ONE.

Notable changes to the list (which we think you’ll love) include:

• Stickers, rubber bands, twist ties, etc. from fresh produce have now been placed at the very top of the Not Acceptable side of the list (as these contaminants, and particularly produce stickers, continue to be the most common contaminant we find in our buckets), with a recommendation to remove them from produce as soon as it is brought home
• Bones (as long as they are from cooked meat) are now acceptable (with the caveat that we do not want whole carcasses, such as Thanksgiving turkeys)
• To provide clarity, jams, jellies, preserves, maple and other types of syrups, nut butters, salsas, hummus, tahini, etc. have been added to the List as Acceptable
• To provide clarity, herbs have been added alongside fruits and vegetables (whole or scraps, raw or cooked) as Acceptable, with added emphasis about STICKERS NEEDING TO BE REMOVED
• To provide clarity, herbivorous animal/chicken bedding has been added alongside herbivorous animal/chicken droppings as Acceptable
• To provide clarity, we have updated the Not Acceptable side of the list to state that we do not accept either alcohol or fruits (such as apples, cherries, watermelon, etc.) soaked in alcohol, and to make clear that while we do not want vinegar poured into our buckets, we will accept pickled items such as eggs, mushrooms, and vegetables (including pickles)
• We have removed frosting from the Not Acceptable side of the list and updated the Acceptable side of the List to state that we accept bread and other baked goods (which encompasses things like cake, with or without frosting)
• To provide clarity, we have updated the Not Acceptable side of the List to state that we do not accept Large Amounts of Liquids or Oils, such as bacon grease, coffee, juice, kombucha, nut milks, pickle brine, tea, etc., but that a little bit is okay, such as on a paper towel, and that leakage from decomposing fruit/vegetable scraps is expected

If you have any questions or concerns about these changes to the List, or need additional clarification on the List as it now exists, please let us know. We are always here to help.

Changes to our Rewards Programs to combat contamination, effective immediately

We are making changes to our Rewards Programs, effective immediately, as part of our ongoing efforts to combat contamination in our compost buckets.

Since Greener Bay Compost’s inception in July 2021, we have worked diligently to keep the contents of our buckets contaminant-free and our compost clean. Despite our best efforts, however, we continue to find contaminants (mostly produce stickers) in one-fifth to one-third of our buckets.

Because we consider this amount of contamination unacceptable, effective immediately, we will still be weighing the contents of all of our Residential subscribers buckets and keeping track of the resulting weights for our own purposes, but will be giving zero weight–based credit for contaminated buckets under our Waste Reduction Rewards Program (www.GBCompost.com/Rewards).

For the purposes of this policy change, a “contaminated bucket” means a bucket which contains one or more materials from the Not Acceptable side of our list of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials (a copy of which can be viewed and downloaded at www.GBCompost.com/List).

Please note that it will be entirely up to Greener Bay Compost’s discretion as to whether a particular material is considered Not Acceptable (using the above-mentioned List as a reference). That said, produce stickers are our primary concern, and our finding such stickers inside our buckets will, from this day forward, always result in zero weight–based credit for the contents of the buckets they are found in, regardless of the number of stickers found.

To be clear, this change will apply to all buckets picked up from our Residential subscribers (both Pickup and Drop-Off) after today, including those we will be picking up tomorrow (Sunday, 3/12/2023).

PLEASE NOTE: The contents of bags we receive outside of our buckets, which may contain high-carbon materials such as plain/matte paper and cardboard, will not be affected by this policy change at this time. What this means is that, for the time being, a subscriber may receive zero credit for the contents of their bucket, while still receiving credit for the Acceptable Materials inside said bags. This policy is, however, subject to change at any time.

Subscribers are, if not already doing so, strongly encouraged to remove all produce stickers, rubber bands, twist ties, etc. from fresh produce as soon as they get it home, to dramatically reduce the chances of these contaminants finding their way into their buckets, and costing them credit for the rest of their bucket contents.

While this change will affect our Leaderboard (www.GBCompost.com/Leaderboard) updates we perform each week, it should be noted that we will not be emailing subscribers to notify them of whether they’ve received zero credit for their bucket contents, as we simply do not have the time or resources to do so. Likewise, we will not necessarily be taking photos of all contamination we find in buckets going forward, nor emailing subscribers about such contamination (unless we deem it necessary for us to do so).

Subscribers are encouraged to check the Leaderboard at regular intervals to keep track of their own credits from week to week. If a subscriber would like to know what, if any, credit they’ve received for any particular bucket, they may contact us (www.GBCompost.com/Contact) to inquire about this.

If you have any questions or concerns about this policy change, please let us know. We are always here to help.

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting!

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: We are now accepting Cooked Meat & Solid Dairy!

We have a HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT to make! Effectively immediately, we are now accepting in our buckets the following organic materials:

• Cooked meat (including beef, poultry, pork, fish, etc.) (no bones!)
• Solid dairy (cheese slices, powder, etc.) (melted is ok)

Please note: We are still not accepting raw meat (including raw fish/sushi) or what we refer to as “soft dairy” (milk, yogurt, sour cream, etc.), unless it is in small amounts on/in, or baked into, other foods.

This means we will now take, for example, and just to name a few things, the following items (because we know we will get questions about this):

• Restaurant leftovers (minus any bones)
• Mac n Cheese (made with either powdered cheese mixed with milk or pre-made cheese sauce)
• Lasagna, spaghetti, fettuccine, etc., including with alfredo sauce, ricotta cheese, grated parmesan, etc. on/in it
• Pizza (with all the toppings still on it)
• Chips like Doritos, which are covered in cheese powder
• Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc., even if they have some melted cheese sauce, a little sour cream, etc. on them
• Cheeseburgers
• Chicken nuggets/fingers
• Green, moldy cheese
• Entire containers full of homemade meals (like that casserole from last Thanksgiving you forgot you made) that went bad in the back of your fridge

If it hasn’t become apparent yet, what we are doing here is a real game-changer for both us and our subscribers, and we have our friends at Glass Nickel Pizza to thank, in large part, for prompting this change. You see, when we took them on as a subscriber a few months again, we made an exception for them by allowing them to provide us cooked meat and solid dairy, because it wouldn’t make sense for them to compost with us if we couldn’t take such things from them.

Fast-forward to today, and we have determined that, with our compost site being in the Town of Lessor, as opposed to where it used to be (in my backyard), we no longer need to be concerned about attracting rodents or about “offensive odors,” and are thus able to safely accept cooked meat and solid dairy from all our subscribers, without fear of running afoul of Green Bay metropolitan area ordinances.

In accordance with this announcement, we have updated our List of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials, which you can find at https://www.GBCompost.com/List/.

(Please note: The above link can also be found at the bottom of the homepage of www.GBCompost.com)

PLEASE DELETE AND/OR RECYCLE ANY OLD COPIES OF THE LIST YOU MAY BE USING OR REFERRING TO AND REPLACE THEM WITH THIS ONE.

This change to our list of of materials we accept is the biggest, most impactful change we have ever made to said list, and we hope it will do a few things:

1. Add major value for all of our Residential subscribers, who can now safely (and sustainably) dispose of a much larger percentage of their household food waste with us (including materials that even the Wisconsin DNR doesn’t recommend anyone attempt to compost in their own backyards)
2. Increase the amount of organic material we receivefrom some subscribers by upwards of 25-33% or more, thus making it easier for those who perhaps do not produce a lot of veggie or fruit waste to justify using our services long-term
3. Massively increase the volume of food waste we save from landfill and compost every month, thereby making our business greener than it has ever been and providing us much more feedstock for our finely sifted, premium compost (for sale now at GBCompost.com/Compost)
4. Pave the way for us to bring on many more Small Business subscribers, in particular, restaurants (like Glass Nickel Pizza, currently our sole Small Business subscriber), for whom meat and cheese waste makes up quite a large percentage of what they throw in the trash every week

If you have any questions or concerns about this announcement, please let us know by using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting!

Our List of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials has been Updated (plus a quick word on contamination)

Just a quick heads up: We just updated our List of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials, which you can now find at https://www.gbcompost.com/list/.

(Please note: The above link can also be found at the bottom of the homepage of www.GBCompost.com)

PLEASE DELETE AND/OR RECYCLE ANY OLD COPIES OF THE LIST YOU MAY BE USING OR REFERRING TO AND REPLACE THEM WITH THIS ONE.

A VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT BUCKET CONTAMINATION:

Before we summarize the changes that have been made, we would like to use this opportunity to remind all of our subscribers that we do not accept plastic, metal, or glass in our buckets and never have, and that it is our subscribers’ responsibility to remove materials we accept from plastic bags before putting them in their buckets, as well as to remove all stickers, rubber bands, twist ties, tape, staples, etc. from fresh produce before providing it us.

We are bringing this up because in the last few weeks, despite us having not had an enormous number of new subscribers come into the company in the past few months, we have noticed a dramatic uptick in the number of buckets we are picking up which contain contaminants, most notably produce stickers, rubber bands, and non-compostable plastic bags with food inside of them.

We do not know if this has to do with the fact that a few months ago we stopped sending emails to everyone whose buckets we found contamination in, but would like to remind all our subscribers that we still screen the contents of every bucket we receive by hand to identify and remove contaminants, and that when we do find contaminants, we make note of it and whose bucket it was found in, even though we may not send an email about it.

Please know that us no longer (or rarely) sending emails to our subscribers about contamination in our buckets does not mean we no longer care about it or that it isn’t a major problem for us, when we find it.

Contamination is, and always has been, a major concern of ours, as it is for all composters, especially whereas the quality of our compost (and the time it takes us to produce it), depends on the materials we receive being as contaminant-free as possible.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of work for us, as a small, two-person, family-run business to screen the contents of 70+ buckets each week, and we kindly request that all subscribers help us keep contaminants out of their buckets by:

1. Removing all stickers, rubber bands, twist ties, tape, etc. from fresh produce as soon as it is brought home
2. Double-(and triple, if necessary)-checking materials before they’re added to our buckets, to ensure they’re not contaminated with plastic, glass, metal, etc.
3. Not allowing young children or friends/family members who are not familiar with our List of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials to add materials to our buckets, without appropriate coaching and/or supervision

Please know that if you put contaminants in your buckets, you’re hurting us, but you’re also hurting yourself (assuming you ever intend to buy compost from us, or earn any through our Waste Reduction Rewards Program) and anyone else who may wish to do so, because the amount of time we have to spend on producing the compost (which includes pulling contaminants out of it), directly relates to the price we charge for it, as well as the quality of it (which is very high, because of how much time we spend screening contaminants out of it).

Bottom line: We alone cannot keep our compost clean. We need your help, because we receive almost all the feedstock for our compost from you. So please, help us (and yourself) by not letting contaminants come anywhere near our buckets, and in return, we will continue providing you the same great service you’ve always received from us, and producing the best compost anywhere within 100 miles of Green Bay.

Thank you in advance for your help with the above! We very much appreciate it.

TO SUMMARIZE THE CHANGES TO OUR LIST:

Now that that’s out of the way, we’d like to go over the changes made to our List of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials, which are relatively minor:

• We have added Bread to the Acceptable side of the List as a stand-alone item we accept, because despite our previous Lists stating we accept any grains or grain-based materials, including bread, we have been asked quite often over the past few months whether we accept bread. So hopefully this update clears up any confusion surrounding this.
• We have updated our listing of dead/dying houseplants on the Acceptable side of the List to indicate that we just don’t want them to have been chemically-treated, meaning diseased plants are now okay. Also, we have clarified that it is thick root balls we do not want (which should be removed from plants before placing them in our buckets). Roots in general, as well as root balls that can be easily torn apart or crumbled by hand are completely fine by us (think seed starts, for example).
• We have updated our listing of plain/matte paper and cardboard on the Acceptable side of the list to align with an email we sent to all subscribers on 9/21/22 which stated that we no longer accept junk mail or its contents. In determining whether something is “junk mail” or not, we ask our subscribers to use common sense, and if you’re not sure if what you’re thinking of putting in your bucket is junk mail or not, we humbly request you recycle it instead (and this especially goes for envelopes with plastic windows and/or stamps on them).
• We have updated the Acceptable side of the list to indicate that we still accept pumpkins and gourds, assuming they can fit in our buckets, but have removed “corn stalks” and “straw bales,”because these things can clearly not fit inside our buckets and never should have been on this List (which is not a list of things we accept in general, but rather things we accept in our buckets) to begin with.
• We have updated our listing of soft-shelled crustacean shells on the Acceptable side of the list to indicate that we accept crab legs and lobster tails, as we were recently asked by a subscriber if we would take crab legs and lobster tails from a seafood party they were attending, and realized that this section of the List needed to be more clear.
• We have updated the Not Acceptable side of the List to clarify that we do not want lawn grass or lawn mower clippings, period. It does not matter whether the grass has grown in a subscribers lawn or they found it in their garden; we do not want it, period, because the risk of weed-killer/glyphosate/Round-up contamination with grass is unacceptably high.
• We have updated the Not Acceptable side of the List to clarify that when we say we do not want root balls, it is not, say, seed starts we are referring to or small clumps of roots that can be easily torn apart or crumbled by hand, but rather thick balls of roots like those attached to potted mums. We had to make this change because we continue to receive a lot of questions about root balls. Basically, the rule of thumb is, if you can’t pull the root ball apart with your bare hands, we don’t want, because we also can’t pull them apart.
• We have updated the Not Acceptable side of the List to add “Swiffer” pads as Not Acceptable, in addition to wet wipes and baby wipes, because, for some odd reason we just received a Swiffer pad last week, and for those who do not know, Swiffer pads (and other, similar pads) are made with synthetic fibers (which are something that has been on the Not Acceptable side of our list since Greener Bay Compost started).

If you have any questions or concerns about any of the above changes to our List, or anything else mentioned in this announcement, please let us know by using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting!

IMPORTANT: Our Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials List has been Updated

We have just updated our list of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials for Inclusion in Our Compost Buckets, which can be viewed on this website at https://www.gbcompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Greener-Bay-Compost-Acceptable-and-Not-Acceptable-Materials-List.pdf, or through our link at the bottom of our homepage.

The changes that have been made can be summarized as follows:

• We have updated our list to indicate that we will now accept any and all products labeled as either BPI-Certified Compostable (with BPI being an American organization) or TUV-Certified Compostable (with TUV being a European organization). To find items certified as such, or to find out if items you buy or are considering purchasing are certified as such, please visit https://bpiworld.org/Find-Certified-Products or https://www.tuv-at.be/green-marks/certified-products/.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of ashes from untreated, natural wood to be more clear with regard to the fact that we do not accept charcoal.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of coffee grounds to indicate that we also accept coffee beans, in addition to the paper coffee filters we have always accepted.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of dead/dying houseplants to indicate that we no longer accept root balls (and would thus like those removed), which we recommend taking to one’s local yard waste site (or leaving on ones curb, for pickup by one’s municipality, if/when such pickup services are available).
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of eggs to be clear that we do accept Easter eggs.
• We have added flowers to the list of materials we clearly accept, with the caveat that we only want them if they have not been painted/dyed with non-food-safe paints or dyes or coated/covered in glitter.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of fruits and vegetables to be more clear that we accept whole produce, and not just scraps.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of grains (such as corn, rice, quinoa, etc.) to be clear that we do also accept grain-based products, such as breads, cereals, chips, crackers, pastas, etc.
• We have added “Napkins, paper towels, etc. soiled with food” to our list of Acceptable Materials, with an emphasis on them being soiled with food.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of nuts, seeds, and their shells to state that in addition to black walnut, we now no longer accept pecans or their shells, as they contain juglone (which inhibits the growth of other plants), just as black walnut does.
• We have updated our wording on our acceptance of paper or cotton tea bag tags to be more clear that we only accept the tags if they are plain/matte, as opposed to shiny/glossy, as we have been receiving many shiny/glossy tea bag tags lately.
• We have added vinegar to our list of Not Acceptable materials, where it is now lumped in with alcohol, such as beer, wine, hard liquor, etc.
• We have added ceramics (such as terracotta pot pieces) to our list of Not Acceptable materials.
• We have added root balls (such as those from dead, potted houseplants) to our list of Not Acceptable materials.
• While we have always found shiny/glossy paper and cardboard to be not acceptable, we have now added emphasis with regard to our non-acceptance of “gift wrap” paper & food boxes lined with “waterproof” material).
• We have added “snotty” tissues or Kleenex (for health/safety reasons) to our list of Not Acceptable materials.
• While we have always found them to be not acceptable, we have now officially added wax, “baking”/parchment, or “non-stick” paper to the Not Acceptable side of our list, to provide more clarity to our subscribers, whereas we have been receiving quite a bit of this material over the past several months.
• While we have always found them to be not acceptable, on the grounds that chemicals, such as those commonly found in wet wipes, are harmful to compost, we have now officially added wet wipes / baby wipes to the Not Acceptable side of our list, to provide more clarity to our subscribers, whereas we have seen a large influx of these wipes in the buckets we have picked up over the past few months.

In addition to the above updates, we have made many more minor updates to the wording of our list, to eliminate or reduce redundancies and provide clarity to our subscribers and the general public.

Please note that with regard to some of the new additions to the Not Acceptable side of our list, including ceramics, root balls, and “snotty” tissues and Kleenex, we will not be penalizing anyone for the inclusion of these materials in any buckets we pick up prior to 6/19/2022.

That said, if any of these materials are found in buckets picked up on or after 6/19/22 or later, the buckets they are found in will be considered “dirty,” as per our Compost Discount Program, which we made an announcement about on 5/15/2022, and which you can read at: https://www.gbcompost.com/2022/05/15/effective-6-1-22-our-loyalty-and-waste-reduction-rewards-program-will-be-replaced-with-a-new-compost-discount-program/

If you have any questions or concerns about any of these updates/changes to our list of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials, please let us know by using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

IMPORTANT: Our Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials List has been Updated

We have just updated our list of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials for Inclusion in Our Compost Buckets, which can be viewed on this website at https://www.gbcompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Greener-Bay-Compost-Acceptable-and-Not-Acceptable-Materials-List.pdf, or through our link at the bottom of our homepage.

The changes that have been made can be summarized as follows:

We now accept, without reservation, any and all products labeled as BPI-Certified Compostable. To find items certified as such, or to find out of items you buy or are considering purchasing are certified as such, please visit https://bpiworld.org/Find-Certified-Products.

We have updated our wording on Acceptable ashes to clearly state that not only are ashes made from untreated, natural wood Acceptable, but that those made from the type of plain/matte paper and cardboard we have always accepted are Acceptable as well.

We have updated our wording with regard to coffee grounds to indicate that we accept ALL coffee grounds, whether used/spent or not.

We have updated our list to clearly state that we not only accept egg shells, but whole eggs as well (whether raw or cooked/hardboiled).

We have updated our wording with regard to used/spent potting soil to reflect that we would like any rocks/stones in the soil (typically found in the bottom of it) removed from it prior to it being added to our buckets, as well as added rocks/stones to the Not Acceptable side of our list.

We have updated our wording with regard to pumpkins to request that tea lights be removed from pumpkins (Jack o’ Lanterns) prior to them being provided to us.

We have officially added the following materials to the Acceptable side of our list, although we have already been accepting them for quite some time now:

• Fish skins
• Seeds
• Pits (such as from avocados)
• Jack o’ Lanterns
• Planer shavings made from untreated, natural wood
• Scobies (such as from kombucha production)
• Shrimp shells

We have added bamboo brush handles to the hard wood category of materials we do not accept.

We have updated our wording with regard to large volumes of liquid being Not Acceptable to clarify that the liquid that naturally leaks out of decaying food (such as watermelon, strawberries, lettuce leaves, etc.) is perfectly fine, as it is expected, but that large volumes of other liquids (as in, those artificially-added to our buckets) are still Not Acceptable.

We have added sourdough starter to the Not Acceptable side of our list as, after having advised a few subscribers it was okay to include it in their buckets and after having received it on several occasions in the past several months, we have come to the conclusion that the negatives of accepting this particularly sticky material far outweigh the benefits, due to how difficult it makes it for us to sort through buckets containing it.

Finally, we have added wine/bottle corks to the Not Acceptable side of our list as, despite our best efforts in the past several months to compost the corks, the corks have proven themselves to be non-compostable via the composting process we use.

Please note that with regard to the new additions to the Not Acceptable side of our list, most notably bamboo brush handles, rocks/stones, sourdough starter and wine/bottle corks, we will not be penalizing anyone for the inclusion of these materials in any buckets we pick up between now and 4/30/22.

That said, if any of these materials are found in buckets picked up on 5/1/22 or later, we will be applying either our normal half-pound penalty per individually identifiable Not Acceptable material we find, or, as is often the case when dealing with rocks/stones or large volumes of liquid, deducting the actual weight of the Not Acceptable material, whichever is greater, from the weight of the related bucket contents, per our Loyalty and Waste Reduction Rewards Program.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of these updates/changes to our list of Acceptable & Not Acceptable Materials, please let us know by using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

IMPORTANT: Our Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials List has been Updated

We just updated our list of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials, a copy of which can be viewed/downloaded at https://www.gbcompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Greener-Bay-Compost-Acceptable-and-Not-Acceptable-Materials-List.pdf, to reflect that we will no longer be accepting machine-shredded paper or cardboard, without expressed, written permission, going forward.

Please note: Plain/matte paper or cardboard that is hand-torn, cut with a box cutter, etc. into something like half or fourths will still be acceptable, as it always has been (but still, no receipts, please, as these are made with toxic “thermal paper,” not plain/matte paper).

The reason for this change is that in the past two weeks, we have received two buckets from subscribers that contained shredded paper (specifically, shredded junk mail/envelopes) that was contaminated with a combination of shiny/glossy paper, foil, and plastic envelope window bits.

This resulted in us needing to dispose of approximately one-eighth to one-tenth of the contents of each of these buckets in the garbage (and could potentially have resulted in us needing to trash the entire bucket contents, had the contamination affected the entire bucket), being that shiny/glossy paper and cardboard, metals such as foil, and plastic of all kinds are on the Not Acceptable side of our list of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials (as they are made with toxic, petroleum-based chemicals, do not biodegrade, or are not safely compostable in general).

As we’re sure you can imagine, this made us very sad, as we hate to see anything that could potentially be composted thrown in the trash, especially the wood shavings at the bottom of our buckets and the compostable liners we line all of our buckets with.

That being the case, to prevent further contamination of the rest of the materials in our buckets going forward, to ensure the clean, high-quality nature of the finished compost we make, and to remain as environmentally-friendly as possible, it is necessary for us to ban machine-shredded paper and cardboard from inclusion in future Greener Bay Compost buckets.

Please note: We may make exceptions to this policy on a case-by-case basis, assuming a subscriber requests such an exception from us, and is granted one, in writing, prior to adding machine-shredded paper or cardboard to their buckets. An example of a case where we may grant such an exception would be in the event that a subscriber has non-shiny/glossy gift basket shreds they’d like to compost and which clearly pose no contamination risk to our buckets.

Also, please note: To enforce this new policy, we will be effectuating a policy going forward for any buckets we pick up from subscribers after 1/9/2022 that will see our subscribers receive zero weight-based credit for their bucket contents (as per our Loyalty and Waste Reduction Rewards Program), regardless of the weight of their bucket or the apparent percentage of their bucket contents made up of machine-shredded paper or cardboard, if any machine-shredded paper or cardboard is found inside their buckets (unless, of course, the subscriber has been granted the aforementioned written permission to include such shredded material in their bucket(s)).

If you have any questions or concerns about this change to our list of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials or our new weight-deduction policy relative to machine-shredded paper or cardboard received after 1/9/2022, please let us know. We are always here to help!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials List has been Updated

As of 11/28/2021, our Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials List has been updated.

To view, download, or print a PDF copy of the List, click here: https://www.gbcompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Greener-Bay-Compost-Acceptable-and-Not-Acceptable-Materials-List.pdf

To view, download, or print a JPEG copy of the List, click here: https://www.gbcompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Greener-Bay-Compost-Acceptable-and-Not-Acceptable-Materials-List-scaled.jpg

If you have any questions or concerns about the changes made to this List, or anything else, for that matter, please do not hesitate to email us at gbcompost@gmail.com, call us at 920-819-0446, or contact us through our Contact form located at GBCompost.com/Contact.