Turning kitchen scraps into chicken feed. Here’s how a pilot program in Tacoma will work
To reduce household food waste, the City of Tacoma and Mill, a company that uses technology to address residential food waste, teamed up for a pilot program.
The city and Mill announced the pilot in a news release Tuesday.
Tacoma residents can sign up at mill.com/tacoma for a Mill membership, which includes a food bin.
Customers can put kitchen scraps in the bin at any time. Overnight, the bin dries, shrinks and removes bad odor from the food waste, turning it into Food Grounds, a safe and nutritious chicken-feed ingredient. The Food Grounds can be stored until the bin is full. The customer can then empty the Food Grounds into a prepared box and schedule a pick-up through the Mill app. The U.S. Postal Service will bring the Food Grounds back to Mill.
Tacoma is the first municipality in the country to pilot this kitchen-scrap program.
“We’re excited to team up with the City of Tacoma to provide a better kitchen experience for residents, increase participation in organics recycling and source separation at home, and prevent food waste from existing in the first place,” said Alyssa Pollack, head of business at Mill.
According to a City Council memorandum, a startup approached the city’s Solid Waste staff about implementing new climate-forward technology to improve residential management of food waste. The city and Mill began to draft an agreement in September. Mill officially launched in January.
Tacoma has collected and recycled residential food waste since 2012. It has diverted up to 1,000 tons per year of compostable food waste from landfills, Lewis Griffith, City of Tacoma Solid Waste division manager, said in a news release.
In the memorandum, Michael Slevin III, the environmental services director, wrote inconvenience and the “ick” factor are the two challenges for maximizing participation in the city’s existing curbside organics collection program.
As a part of the agreement, the city gained priority access to at least 600 Mill memberships and access to new data that can help inform the city on waste prevention and food-waste reduction projects, the memorandum stated.
The first bins are expected to ship to members as early as March, it stated.
The membership starts at $33 a month, which includes the kitchen device, postal service for shipping Food Grounds, an app and technical support. The subscription costs are paid directly to Mill. Mill will make a per-member contribution to an organization focused on food insecurity serving Tacoma residents, according to the news release.
According to the 2015 City of Tacoma Sustainable Materials Management Waste Stream Composition study, kitchen scraps account for about 28 percent of Tacoma’s residential waste stream. Mill estimates customers could save $12.80 to $25.60 a month depending on the size of their garbage containers.
Mill is working through the scientific and regulatory processes to turn your Food Grounds into a safe and nutritious chicken-feed ingredient, according to the news release.
This story was originally published February 16, 2023 at 5:00 AM.