Greener Bay Compost founder Cory Groshek meets with the City of De Pere’s Sustainability Commission

Greener Bay Compost founder Cory Groshek was proud to meet with the City of De Pere’s Sustainability Commission, during their 1/9/2024 meeting, to further discuss a Public-Private Partnership between Greener Bay Compost and the City of De Pere.

This meeting may be viewed in full by clicking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrhAXSqz-f0, or by watching the video embedded below:

If you would like to cut directly to the part of the meeting where our founder is introduced, you can do so on YouTube at 1:40 into the video by clicking https://youtu.be/FrhAXSqz-f0?si=fK6nZrhNm-kRGLEI&t=1069, or by watching the video embedded below:

Greener Bay Compost featured in The Business News

We are excited to announce that Greener Bay Compost has been featured in an article by The Business News’ Matthew Day, dated 12/18/2023, regarding our upcoming Public-Private Partnership with the City of De Pere.

You may view the article in full at: https://thebusinessnews.com/article/de-pere-greener-bay-compost-team-up-to-fight-food-waste-

Greener Bay Compost featured on the New Leaf Foods blog

We are excited to announce that Greener Bay Compost has been featured in a blog post by New Lead Foods’ Braedon Richlen, dated 11/2/2023, regarding our one-of-a-kind Compost Pickup Services.

You may view the article in full at: https://newleaffoods.org/blog/f/a-greener-future-with-greener-bay-compost

Significant improvements to our Waste Reduction Rewards Program, effective 8/1/2023

Effective 8/1/2023, we will be making one of the most significant improvements we have ever made to our Waste Reduction Rewards Program (which is just one of three rewards programs we offer to our Residential subscribers, which you can learn more about at www.GBCompost.com/Rewards).

Effective 8/1/2023, Residential subscribers pounds diverted from landfill, which we track publicly via the Greener Bay Compost Leaderboard at www.GBCompost.com/Leaderboard, will be converted to “Compost Points,” which can be redeemed (or “cashed in”) with us, in either 100 or 500 point increments, for bags of our finely sifted, premium compost (which, for those who don’t know, we sell year-round at www.GBCompost.com/Compost).

100 Points = (1) Gallon bag of compost

500 Points = (1) Cubic Foot bag of compost

(For reference, a cubic foot of compost is equivalent to just shy of six and a half gallons of compost)

Please note: As per our current Waste Reduction Rewards Program terms, we will provide Points to subscribers only in exchange for the contents of 100% contaminant-free buckets, on the basis of one Point per each qualifying pound. Simply put, contaminated bucket contents = no Compost Points (and so now may be a good time to review our List of Acceptable and Not Acceptable Materials, located at www.GBCompost.com/List).

We are able to make this improvement to our Waste Reduction Rewards Program in large part due to the fact that in our second year of existence (August 2022 to present), we more than doubled the volume of food waste (and other organics) we divert from landfill each week (thanks in large part to the massive amounts of waste we pick up each week from our Commercial subscribers, which include Glass Nickel Pizza, Kavarna Coffeehouse, Bellin Hospital & Psychiatric Center, and St. Vincent Hospital), compared to our first year (August 2021 to August 2022), as well as to the introduction of our Gallon-sized bags of compost this past November.

This is a very exciting development for us, because it enables a much larger percentage of our Residential subscribers to earn compost from us, in a much shorter period of time, so more of you can experience the awesomeness of our amazing soil amendment/plant superfood for yourselves (or gift it to your loved ones).

Once this improvement takes effect, the Leaderboard will be updated to reflect subscribers “Compost Points Accrued,” rather than “LBS. OF WASTE DIVERTED FROM LANDFILL SINCE 6/1/22”.

Assuming subscribers contact us to advise us they would like to redeem/”cash in” their Points, we will endeavor to distribute their earned compost to them, free of charge and as soon as possible, on one of their future Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup days.

Please note: Once the above-mentioned Leaderboard update is completed, subscribers will be expected to proactively visit the Leaderboard (www.GBCompost.com/Leaderboard) and to contact us, at their convenience, using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact, to advise us as to when/how they would like to redeem their Compost Points. Effective 8/1/2023, will no longer be sending individual emails to subscribers to notify them that they have “earned compost” (or accrued a certain number of Compost Points), with rare exception.

Please also note that our compost is, as always, subject to availability, which means we may or may not always have it available, in certain bag sizes, or at certain points in time. That said, we work very hard to ensure our compost is available year-round, in both Gallon and Cubic Foot bags, for both sale and as a reward for our subscribers, and will always do our best to fulfill any requests our subscribers may make to redeem/”cash in” their points (even if such requests are made in the middle of winter).

If you have any questions or concerns about the content of this announcement, please do not hesitate to contact us using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

Until next time, best wishes & happy composting!

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: We are moving to a Wait List based system with regard to our Residential Compost Pickup and Drop-Off Services

Due to overwhelming demand for our services, and effective immediately, we are moving to a Wait List based system with regard to our Residential Compost Pickup and Drop-Off Services.

What this means is that, going forward, we will not be accepting any new Residential subscribers, until/unless we lose a commensurate number of our existing Residential subscribers.

Pursuant to this decision, we have created a Residential Wait List individuals may sign up for, if they are interested in becoming a Residential subscriber of ours, which may be found by clicking on any of the “Subscribe Now” buttons at www.GBCompost.com/Residential. Should a spot for a new subscriber open up, we will offer said spot, via email, to whomever may be first in line on this Wait List.

What this means for our current Residential subscribers is that should they cancel and take leave of our service, whether it be for a short period of time (i.e.: a month or two) or long-term (i.e.: for years, or “permanently”), they will not necessarily be able to sign back up with us in the future, if/when they decide to return to us. Instead, they will need to sign up for our Wait List and wait to be notified by us of when we have an opening for a new subscriber.

Should anyone on our Wait List receive an offer to sign up with us, which will include a link to a page on this site where they can do so, and assuming we are able to service their location, they will have 48 hours to sign up with us. If they do not sign up within this time frame, they will receive an email from us notifying them that they have been removed from the Wait List, but that they may choose to re-sign-up for the Wait List at any time.

Thank you to all of our Residential and Commercial subscribers who have enabled us to grow to the point where a Wait List has become a necessity for us. We appreciate your support and look forward to serving you in the months (and hopefully) years ahead!

If you have any questions about our Wait List, you may contact us using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

Changes to our service pricing, effective June 1st, 2023

Effective June 1st, 2023, the prices of our Residential Compost Pickup and Drop-Off Services will be updated as follows:

To summarize: The price of our Once-a-Month and 1x/Month services is not changing and will remain $15/month, while the price of our Every-Other-Week and 2x/Month services will be changing to $25/month.

Additionally, the price of a “Special, One-Time Bucket Swap” (an option which is rarely used by our subscribers) will be changing from $10 per swap to $12.50 per swap.

Our “Add-a-Bucket” price is not changing and will remain $12.50 per month, per bucket. Also, our “Make-Up Swap” price is not changing and will remain $6.50 per swap.

As a reminder: Our subscribers are allowed to upgrade or downgrade their service (for example, from Once-a-Month to Every-Other-Week service, or vice versa) at any time.

The above-mentioned changes will take effect automatically and be reflected in the amount you are charged on your subscription renewal date in June of this year, whenever it may be. Accordingly, there is nothing you need to do with regard to these changes.

If you have any questions about these changes, you may contact us using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact.

Thank you for your continued support of our one-of-a-kind company, the only food-waste-focused composting facility in our area, and all the communities we serve. We and our planet very much appreciate it!

Until next time, best wishes and happy composting.

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!