Another Year of Growth

Written By Mary Beth Schaye

Happy New Year from Collective Resource Compost Cooperative!

It’s been another gratifying year of growth:

Our number of co-op owners has grown to 140!

We reached our 14th birthday and have diverted 14,450 tons from the landfill since we started. We are routinely diverting 50+ tons every week and have diverted 2,400+ tons this year alone.

We are now partnering with 3,200+ customers throughout Chicagoland.  We continue to have impactful collaborations through franchise agreements with Evanston, Park Ridge and Skokie. 

We were happy to help many events get closer to zero waste this year: from weddings to fundraisers to large public events like Deerfield’s Food Truck Wednesdays, Out of Space’s Inaugural Evanston Folk Festival and LIV Golf Tournament in Bolingbrook.

We’re encouraged by the growing number of community drop-off sites that enable greater access to food scrap diversion, including 2 in Evanston and 12 in Skokie.

We partnered with SSA Main-Dempster Mile and received a Sustain Evanston grant that allowed us to introduce composting to 8 more food establishments in that neighborhood. 

We began a partnership with TerraCycle to help our customers divert more from the landfill using their Zero Waste Bags to recycle hard-to-recycle items.

We began a partnership with Eco-Products that enables us to source certified compostable products at a more reasonable cost for our customers. 

Thank you for being part of our composting community and for choosing us to help you mitigate climate change. Together, we’ve diverted over 2,400 tons of food scraps in 2024. This has reduced greenhouse gases, reduced landfill use and nourished the soil. 

Happy New Year from all of us at CRCC!

Compost Education, Zero Waste Events & Customer Service—Erlene*, Mary Beth*, Beth*, Chris, Laura, Ashley, Sean, Grace, Igna 

Operations—Jeremy, Ronnie*, Terrance

Compost Collection—Kevin, Justin, Chris*, Jesus*, Joshua, Brian, Craig, Lora, Lester, Keith, Denzell, Sam

Container Maintenance—Nigel, José, Dev, Michael, Shaquille, Sam

Consumer Co-op Board Members—Dana, Joe, Mike

*Employee Co-op Board Members

Mary Beth Schaye

Mary Beth strongly believes that “It’s always better to be doing something rather than nothing.” If you’re thinking of composting at home, she can help you work out what your particular “something” can be. She’s confident a solution can be tailored to fit anyone’s needs and ambitions. “Anyone who eats can be a CRI customer, whether you are an individual or a large organization. I want you to understand the advantages of composting, and I can show you how CRI can make it easy.” Mary Beth has successfully designed waste diversion strategies for individuals, schools, houses of worship, and other communities. She’s received the governor’s Environmental Hero award for her work at her daughter’s school. Whether you’re starting with a backyard bin, a kitchen bucket, a worm farm, or a large-scale commercial collection, Mary Beth can be your good-natured guide.

Previous

What a World, What a World!
Next

Thank You Ken Dunn