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When Heather Maybury attended a food waste and composting program in Colorado many years ago, she had no idea it would one day launch a career in and fuel her passion for food waste composting. “It sat in the back of my mind for many years,” she said, thinking back to what started it all. It wasn’t until she read an article in National Geographic about the food entombed in landfills did she think about doing something herself.
Her solution was to start Curbside Compostables, a composting service to address this growing landfill problem. Maybury later purchased Earth Mama Compost to expand her business. Her goal? Make composting easier and more accessible to the average consumer by giving each subscribed home a composting bucket, then picking it up and delivering it to a local composter. This is her way of contributing to the circular economy – by diverting food waste from the landfill so that it can be used as a resource elsewhere. Once she saw the impact she was beginning to make, it was hard to stop.
Now, Maybury focuses on using her company to empower others. She knows that not everyone has the resources themselves to begin composting, so she does her part in helping them get there. She also wants people to know that it’s easier than most think to begin living sustainably. It’s as simple as thinking about what we bring into our homes, so that we can reduce waste on the front end. Instead of buying food packaged in plastic or styrofoam packing, we should opt for more easily recycled packaging, e.g., getting bacon wrapped in butcher’s paper. “People have so much power in their hands,” Maybury said, “and little choices can make a huge impact.”
In the future, Maybury hopes to see more composters pop up all over the state. She wants to build a community of people who really care about where food waste goes and lessen how much of it ends up in landfills. “It’s important to leave the Earth better than we found it,” she said, emphasizing that she wants a beautiful world for her daughter and future grandchildren. In her final thoughts, she repeated that everyone should find a sustainable habit that works for their lives and do it. If everyone made one little change, the world would be a very different place.
Written by Erin Edwards
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