City of Toledo Opens Three Composting Sites to Reduce Carbon Footprint

As part of its “1% for the Environment” fund, the City of Toledo, Ohio has established three new composting sites in Lucas County.

Composting in Toledo is now a city-funded initiative and is directly accessible to households in the city. The end goal is to set Toledo on a path to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. The composting sites are part of a partnership between Metroparks Toledo, GoZERO Composting, and Keep Toledo/Lucas County Beautiful.

“40% of our food waste from households goes to the landfill,” Adam Cassi, the executive director of Keep Toledo/Lucas County Beautiful said. “63 million tons of food across the United States is thrown away every year and it’s just filling our landfills.”

Sites established at Swan Creek Metropark, Glass City Metropark, and the Toledo Botanical Garden make composting simple for residents. Food waste and other compostable materials can be dumped into one of the green bins on site and GoZERO takes it from there.

“The truck then will go to my family’s farm, and we are set up - we have an Ohio EPA-licensed composting facility where over the course of about three months, we can get the material to a place where it’s fit to be used as a fertilizer,” David Andre, the executive director of GoZERO Composting said. “Well, not fertilizer, a soil amendment.”

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