When Sally Brown finds herself with food scraps and no available compost pile, she takes matters into her own hands. “I’ll surreptitiously put it outside,” said Brown, a research professor and soil scientist at the University of Washington. “Compost is a way to effectively feed your soil,“ she said. "When I go someplace where there’s no composting, I get very upset.”
Brown does that because organic material exposed to oxygen — you know, decomposing in a compost pile or surreptitiously tossed behind a bush — creates carbon dioxide. But organic material rotting in landfills creates methane, which has a much larger climate impact than CO2. “So getting stuff that rots out of landfills is a very cheap way to quickly reduce carbon emissions,” said Brown. At least, in theory.
Landfills account for roughly 14% of all U.S. methane emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This means that that slice of the emissions pie could get way smaller if we were better at closing the gap between organic waste producers — households and businesses — and compost users. The problem is that most of us don’t live near farms that can readily use the lawn trimmings or avocado skins produced in our homes. That’s where companies like
Agromin come in.
Agromin is one of the largest organics recyclers in California. Bill Camarillo, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said his company handles about 1.2 million tons of organic waste per year but hopes to make that 10 million tons over the next decade. “I’m on a 10 million-ton march,” he said. | 
