By Nancy Gohring

A couple of years ago, my husband and I decided to set up our own DIY food composting system in the back yard. We moved here five years ago from Seattle which has compulsory curbside food composting (if the garbage people spot food in your trash, they can theoretically fine you) and it killed us to throw away our food scraps. Also, we’re gardeners and love the idea of making our own compost to feed our plants. And we know that composting food scraps has a significant impact on the environment, since it retains the nutrients from food scraps, feeding it back into the soil, rather than wasting it in a landfill.

Despite all the blog posts we read and YouTube videos we watched that described how easy it is to compost food, we failed at it. We never were able to get most of the food to break down enough into a recognizable form of compost that we’d want to scatter in our gardens.

Then we took notice of the buckets that many neighbors set out with names of composting services on them.

While curbside city compost pickup isn’t just a west coast thing — New York City started rolling it out last year and will introduce it across the city this year — Pittsburgh doesn’t offer it. However, Highland Park is a great place to live if you’re interested in signing up for a service that will compost your food: we currently have five companies serving our neighborhood. Apparently we are an environmentally conscious bunch if we have attracted so many composting businesses!

I plan to sign up for a service this year and did some digging into each of them. The prices are relatively similar but they have somewhat different policies that might be important to you. I pulled together what I found out into a spreadsheet in hopes of giving other folks in the neighborhood a leg up. Please do double check everything with the companies: I compiled this information from their websites and also via email (not everyone replied to my questions).

Happy composting!

(Note that if you scroll to the bottom of the table, you can scroll to the right, if your browser doesn’t display the entire table. This post is probably best viewed on a monitor rather than a cell phone.)

Service	Cost	Pickup	Other fees	Meat/dairy	Compost return	Out of town policy	Other
Carbon Compost	$19.50/mo or $214/year	Every other week	$15 signing fee	Accepts meat and dairy	Two bags of compost in the spring and fall, 20-40 lb bags	Will pause and restart but only if you’re on the month to month plan	Website says they “provide additional” compostable liners as needed after the initial 12 run out. Unclear whether there’s a charge for additional bags.
Shadyside Worms	$25/mo, scales up for additional bins	Weekly	$10 signup fee	Cooked meats and dairy accepted	20 lb of compost in the spring, option for additional in summer or fall. They donate your share if you don’t want it.	Very flexible: will adjust invoice when out of town or offer credit for future invoices. Service can be paused any time.
Zero Waste Wrangler	$22/mo or $264 a year. Drop off plan available instead.	Weekly	$15, includes 25 liners. Additional roll of 25 liners costs $3.11	Meats, bones, cheese accepted	Yearly plan comes with 10 gallon bag of compost.	$2 “skip credit” for each skipped pickup. For longer periods away, service can be paused, with subscription extended.	Instead of curbside pickup, for $10 every four weeks, you can drop off your compost at a few locations, including one near Trader Joe’s and one in Bloomfield.
Compost People	$22 mo/$264 a year	Weekly	$15 includes eight bin bags, after which you purchase more. Starter fee is waived for yearly subscribers.	Meat and dairy accepted, as well as food soiled paper products, BPI compostable bags, coffee grounds, coffee filters, tea bags minus the staples, non chlorine bleached napkins and BPI Certified Compostable service ware	1 cubic foot of compost yearly
Worm Return	$30/$40. Check website: they have many different pricing plans.	Every other week or weekly	No extra charge for bin liners		Some amount of worm tea available for free		Dashboard available that shows how your level of composting impacts the environment.