Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

From Side Hustle To City-Wide Phenomenon

In 2009, Tim Bennett was a 27-year-old apartment dweller in Philadelphia with an inconvenient dream of composting his food waste in a city that doesn’t collect organic waste for that purpose, so he invested $100 in buckets and flyers to start collecting neighbors’ scraps. What began as an experiment he thought probably wouldn’t work has grown into Bennett Compost, which now picks up food scraps from 6,500 households and diverts over 150 tons of waste from landfills each month while working with businesses, schools, rec centers, and even the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. His simple idea addresses a massive problem since food waste makes up almost a quarter of U.S. municipal solid waste and is responsible for 58 percent of landfill methane emissions, which have 80 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide.

Bennett’s business is part of the Community Composter Coalition, which brings together over 400 composting initiatives across America that are transforming waste into slow-release fertilizer while creating green jobs, supporting local food resilience, and bringing communities together around tangible shared goals. The beauty of community composting goes far beyond environmental benefits as Bennett explains that you can’t do composting online, and good things happen when you’re standing next to somebody just turning the compost pile together. His success came from partnering with urban gardens and other like-minded local projects, admitting they had to collaborate because they didn’t have money to do it alone, but it made them better and more respectful of the neighborhoods they operate in. What started as one young man’s $100 gamble has become proof that addressing climate change can be as simple as collecting your neighbor’s banana peels and creating community connections one bucket at a time.

PrevPreviousMan From A Meme On A Mission
NextHow Bob Ross Is STILL Helping PBSNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

She Beat Cancer And Then Adopted A Hawk

March 25, 2026

When the first Covid lockdown arrived, most people tried baking sourdough or following along with an exercise video. Candida Meyrick did something rather more unusual: she adopted a Harris Hawk fledgling, and the decision changed her life in ways she is still discovering. Candida, who had come through breast cancer

Read More
Happy News

Speed-Dating For Friends Is Here: Speed-Friending

March 25, 2026

America is in the middle of what researchers are calling a friendship recession, and the numbers behind it are striking. In 1990, about 3 percent of Americans said they had no friends at all. Today that figure has grown to somewhere between 12 and 20 percent, a shift that scientists

Read More
Happy News

The 2028 LA Olympics Just Revealed Its Official Look

March 24, 2026

The countdown to Los Angeles 2028 just got a lot more colorful. LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, has unveiled the official visual identity for the Games — and it’s a breathtaking love letter to Southern California. Dubbed “LA in Full Bloom,” the design concept is inspired

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.