Major policy and program changes to be announced over the next three days

First things first, we hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful day and an amazing start to Spring!

If you are a subscriber to our Curbside Compost Pickup Service, you will be directly affected by some major policy and program changes we will be making over the next three days, one of which will be effective immediately and the other three of which will be effective 6/1/22 (a Wednesday).

For the sake of not overwhelming you with too much information in any one announcement, we will dividing our announcements into a series of announcements over the next three days: One today, one tomorrow (5/13), one this Saturday (5/14), and one this Sunday (5/15), with the announcements becoming progressively more impactful with each day.

We are making the aforementioned changes to our policies and programs for several reasons:

1. To streamline/simplify our business
2. To aid our productivity/increase our efficiency
3. To maximize our profitability/ensure our survival as a business
4. To prepare for our near-term future, which will see our business split essentially evenly between our existing Curbside Compost Pickup Service and what will soon be our Compost Sales
5. To prepare for our longer-term future, which may see us partner with Municipalities (such as the City of Green Bay) on “food waste pilot programs,” potentially as soon as 2023

Today, we have a relatively minor announcement to make, which is that, effective immediately (and thus affecting all Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups hereafter), we will no longer be sending post-Swap/post-Pickup “confirmation emails,” such as many of our subscribers have become accustomed to, following successful Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups, to advise subscribers that their Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups have been completed successfully.

The only exception to the above will be for new subscribers who will continue to receive an email from us after we have successfully delivered their first compost bucket to them, to provide them with all the information they need to get started with us.

The primary reason we are making this change is that we have not received much feedback from our subscribers to suggest that they find these post-Swap/post-Pickup “confirmation emails” to be useful or necessary. Secondly, it takes us quite a bit of time to set up said emails, attach photos to them in the middle of our Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup routes, and to send them. Finally, because of spotty Internet connectivity during our Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup routes, these emails cannot be sent, in the majority of cases, until hours after we have already completed our Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups, which defeats their purpose to some extent.

Please note: We will continue to take photos of the buckets we are swapping, at the time our Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups are completed, for record-keeping purposes.

Our next announcement will be tomorrow. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact. We are always here to help and look forward to continuing to serve you in the months (and hopefully years) ahead!

UPDATE: We are discontinuing our Weekly Curbside Compost Pickup Service plans

After much thoughtful consideration, we have decided to cease offering our Weekly Curbside Compost Pickup Service plans to new subscribers, effective immediately, and to discontinue offering the same to existing subscribers on such plans as soon as possible.

Please note that we will continue to offer two Every-Other-Week plans (a Month-to-Month version, as well as a discounted, 6–Months–Paid–in–Full version), in addition to an “Add a Bucket” option for an extra $10/month (which requires a separate subscription) and a “Special, One-Time Pickup” service for a one-time charge of $7.50, for the sake of providing flexibility to our subscribers whose households may produce more waste each week than an average household.

We have a few reasons for discontinuing our Weekly plans:

1. Out of the (118) subscribers we now serve, only (10) are on our Weekly plans, which means the demand for our Weekly plans is extremely low.
2. Out of the (10) subscribers we currently have on Weekly plans (including your household), we have determined that only about 20% of these subscribers actually need to be on something like a Weekly plan, based on the average poundage of the buckets we pick up from them each week, which means they are paying for more pickups than they really need.
3. Us transitioning to only doing Every-Other-Week pickups will help make our routes shorter and more efficient (thus saving us both time and money), as well as pave the way for us to make further changes to our routes in late summer of 2022, so that we will no longer be driving routes every week (as we’ve been doing since our inception in August 2021), but rather every other week (which will massively improve the Work/Life Balance of our team members).

So what does all of this mean for you?

Any subscribers whose Weekly, 6–Months–Paid–in–Full plans were, until today, set to automatically renew at $162/every six months will, instead, automatically transition to an Every-Other-Week, 6–Months–Paid–in–Full plan at $81/every six months on their next renewal date.

If you are a subscriber who feels that a Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup performed for you just once every other week is not sufficient to account for the amount of waste your household produces each week, then please now that there are a couple options we have to offer to help you work around this concern.

First, you could consider signing up for our “Add a Bucket” option, in conjunction with your new, Every-Other-Week plan plan, which would see you receive not one, but two Greener Bay Compost buckets on each of your scheduled Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup days.

The nice thing about the above option is you can cancel at any time, if, for any reason, you determine or realize that your household does not produce enough waste each week to justify two buckets.

Second, you could pay a one-time charge of $7.50 for a “Special, One-Time Pickup” of your Greener Bay Compost bucket (which, of course, includes a Bucket Swap) on a week when you would otherwise not be having a Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup performed for you, on an as-needed basis.

Finally, you could simply do like many of our subscribers do (and which we do allow them to do, by the way), for in the event that your household produces more waste than you can comfortably or reasonably fit in a single Greener Bay Compost bucket, and put any extra dry waste (such as paper, cardboard, etc.) you may have in a separate paper bag or unscented plastic bag beside your bucket, or any extra wet waste (such as food scraps, coffee grounds, etc.) you may have in a separate, unscented plastic bag beside your bucket, or both on your scheduled Bucket Swap/Compost Pickup days.

Please note: We don’t have any limit on how many extra “dry” or “wet” bags you can set beside your buckets.

If you need to discuss the above options with us in more detail, or if you have any questions or concerns about this update in general, you are welcome (and encouraged) to contact us using any of the contact methods available at www.GBCompost.com/Contact, otherwise you will simply be transitioned to the Every-Other-Week version of our plans which is closest to the plan you are currently on, as soon as your current plan expires, as indicated earlier.

Thank you, as always, for helping us make Green Bay a little greener every day, and happy composting!

Greener Bay Compost featured in Wisconsin Life & Style Magazine’s Spring 2022 Issue!

In April of 2022, Greener Bay Compost, was featured in the spring edition of Wisconsin Life & Style Magazine, as seen below. Enjoy!

Greener Bay Compost name-dropped by Green Bay Sustainability Commission as potential Green Bay City Partner for Food Waste Prevention Program

Greener Bay Compost was name-dropped during the City of Green Bay‘s April 19th, 2022 Common Council meeting by the Green Bay Sustainability Commission‘s Mark Walter as a potential partner for the City with regard to a proposed city-wide Food Waste Prevention Program.

This meeting may be viewed in full by clicking https://youtu.be/rheFqAxGHps, or by watching the video embedded below:

If you would like to watch the part of the meeting where Mark Walter discusses the City’s Waste Reduction goals, you can do so on YouTube at 42 minutes into the video (with the segment running until 46:10 in) by clicking https://youtu.be/rheFqAxGHps?t=2520, or by watching the video embedded below:

If you’d like to skip ahead to the part where Mark Walter discusses Greener Bay Compost specifically, as well as some other potential partners, you can do so on YouTube at 45 minutes and 19 seconds into the video by clicking https://youtu.be/rheFqAxGHps?t=2719, or by watching the video embedded below:

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: Changes to our prices coming effective January 1st, 2022

As you may be aware, if you’ve been to GBCompost.com lately and seen our subscriber count, been keeping an eye on our Instagram account or Facebook page, or seen us on the news recently, we have experienced explosive growth as a company, especially in the last month or so (and of course, we have our subscribers to thank, in large part, for this).

In the last month alone, we have signed up about thirty new subscribers, and we have also held our first Annual Pumpkin Drive, which saw us visit over 90 different households and save several tons of pumpkins, gourds, straw bales, and corn stalks from getting tossed in the trash. Furthermore, since we started taking on subscribers on 8/4/2021, we and our subscribers have kept well over two tons of organic waste out of landfill!

To summarize: Together, we are making a very real, positive, and sizable impact on our community! And we all deserve a round of applause for this.

That said, as has been the case with many other small and local businesses in the last year, we have also seen explosive growth in our costs to operate our business, most notably in the area of our food safe, five gallon buckets and the gasoline required for us to do our Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups (as well as, to a lesser extent, with regards to our bucket lids, the stickers for our buckets and lids, the compostable liners we put in every bucket, and even our utilities, such as the water we need to clean our buckets each week).

Due to the massive growth of our subscriber base, which has grown from 16 to 72 in less than four months, we have also necessarily upgraded the vehicle we use to perform our Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups from a vehicle that can fit a maximum of 19 buckets at one time to one that can fit over 60.

These concerns, combined with feedback we have received from our subscribers over the past several months, consideration of the market we operate in, and an analysis of our profitability, have led us to conclude that we have been undercharging for our services and that for us to not only stay in business but to continue growing and expanding, we will need to increase prices for our Curbside Compost Pickup Service plans.

That said, we are sensitive to the fact that we are in the middle of the Holiday Season right now, and so being that we are not wanting to spring any price increases on our subscribers or our Greater Green Bay community right before Christmas, our planned price increases will not become effective until January 1st, 2022 at Midnight.

Currently, our prices for our Curbside Compost Pickup Services are as follows:

• Every-Other-Week, Month-to-Month Plan: $10/month
• Every-Other-Week, 6-Months-Paid-in-Full Plan: $54/six months
• Weekly, Month-to-Month Plan: $20/month
• Weekly, 6-Months-Paid-in-Full Plan: $108/six months
• Add-A-Bucket Option (for Weekly plan subscribers only): $10/month
• Special, One-Time Pickup (for Every-Other-Week subscribers only): $5 one-time payment

Effective 1/1/2022, our prices for our Curbside Compost Pickup Services will be as follows:

• Every-Other-Week, Month-to-Month Plan: $15/month
• Every-Other-Week, 6-Months-Paid-in-Full Plan: $81/six months
• Weekly, Month-to-Month Plan: $30/month
• Weekly, 6-Months-Paid-in-Full Plan: $162/six months
• Add-A-Bucket Option (for Weekly plan subscribers only): $15/month
• Special, One-Time Pickup (for Every-Other-Week subscribers only): $7.50 one-time payment

PLEASE NOTE: If you’re already on one of our Six-Months-Paid-in-Full plans, you are locked/”grandfathered” in to your current plan at the price you originally paid for it, at least until it renews at the end of your six-month subscription period, whenever that may be, at which point you will be automatically renewed at the new price for your plan detailed above (unless you cancel or otherwise change your plan with us before then).

If you’re on one of our Month-to-Month plans, you will not experience a price increase until your monthly renewal date in the month of January, 2022, whenever that may be.

These price increases will address a few issues we’ve determined to be hurting our profitability and putting us at risk of going out of business:

1. They will ensure that we are adequately compensated for every trip we make to our subscribers’ homes, regardless of how many Sundays/Pickup days occur in any given month
2. They will better reflect the value of our services and the actual work that goes into doing what we do (not just the Bucket Swaps/Compost Pickups, but everything else in between that makes our business work as well)
3. They will better reflect the fact that we are the only Curbside Compost Pickup Service in the Green Bay metropolitan area (with the next closest being in Stevens Point, Madison, or Milwaukee)
4. They will take into account the Rewards Programs we offer our subscribers (which we were not offering at the time we set our current prices, and which is something most companies like ours do not offer)
5. They will provide us the ability to invest in the things we need to invest in to grow, such as, for example, more or bigger compost sites (or facilities), employees/contractors, etc.
6. They will keep our prices in line/competitive with what similar companies, such as Waste Not in Chicago, Illinois, charge for their services (with these other companies, in many cases, charging quite a bit more than we do, even accounting for our new, 2022 pricing)

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email at , by phone at 920-819-0446, or through our Contact form located at www.GBCompost.com/Contact. We are always here to help and look forward to continuing to serve you in the months (and hopefully years) ahead!

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 , call us at 920-819-0446, or contact us through our Contact form located at GBCompost.com/Contact.
 

Greener Bay Compost featured LIVE on Local 5 News!

On Friday, November 26th, 2021 (the day after Thanksgiving), Greener Bay Compost founder, Cory Groshek, appeared LIVE on Local 5 (WFRV) News’s “Local 5 Live” morning show, which aired from 9 AM to 10 AM CST. The segment focused on what Greener Bay Compost is all about, which is recycling food and other organic waste into nutrient-dense compost for gardens.

Read the story on WeAreGreenBay.com here: https://www.gbcompost.com/Local-5-2021-11-26-Article-on-WeAreGreenBaycom

Watch the story on YouTube here: https://www.gbcompost.com/Local-5-2021-11-26-Video-on-YouTube

Greener Bay Compost featured on Fox11 news!

Today, Greener Bay Compost was featured on Fox11 news, in a story by Gabriella Premus, which focused heavily on Greener Bay Compost’s first Annual Pumpkin Drive, which saw the company visit over 90 different households and save several tons of pumpkins, gourds, straw bales, and corn stalks from ending up in landfill. ENJOY!

Read the story on Fox11Online.com here: https://www.gbcompost.com/Fox11-2021-10-22-Article-on-Fox11Onlinecom