I'm getting this question a lot right now, so figured it's time to share a bit. What's next for me, after the store closes in August? Well, less of the same... but most people probably don't realize how much has been on my plate!
In addition to the store, I've been working accounting jobs since spring 2023. In April 2024, I took a full-time job as Controller at a start up that's doing something really cool, and I'd like to share what it is. If there is a corporate gig that you'd imagine for someone as sustainability-minded as I am, this is it. I'm excited to help this company scale and grow, and excited about the impact it will have on a very large climate problem.
Mill exists to remove organic waste from landfills. Those banana peels, apple cores, coffee grounds... if they go into the anaerobic environment of a landfill, they decompose into methane. Methane is a extremely potent greenhouse gas, equivalent to about 86x the magnitude of carbon dioxide. If we compost these same materials, they are exposed to oxygen and can break down into carbon dioxide and return to the earth in a way that feeds the soils and keeps our beautiful natural cycle going.
In San Mateo, we are lucky to have a curbside organics program that helps us compost these materials. But what if we are able to harness the nutritional and caloric value that's still left in these food scraps? What if we were able to create a way to use them as food, feeding chickens? And what if we didn't have to have a stinky, moldy compost bin in our kitchens that constantly needs to be taken outside?
Enter Mill. This bin has been designed to run overnight, dehydrating and grinding food scraps to turn it into a shelf stable food grounds product. Mill has a food grounds processing facility that will take back your waste, process it a bit for safety reasons, and then RETURN IT TO FARMERS as chicken feed (approved by the FDA). Food to farms! Organics diversion! No stinky compost bin!
San Mateo is sort of a bubble. We compost here. It's the norm. But for many places in the country, this isn't an option. There aren't facilities, or bears make it impractical, or municipalities can't handle it. The problem is massive, and this device is a sophisticated way to think about solving it.
As you know, I like to push the boundaries on how things have been done, and look at ways that we can do things differently to solve problems. This company is putting it out there, and making a ton of difference. Since launching the first generation bin in 2023, over 2.3M pounds of organics have been diverted from landfills. Yep, there's an app to track your impact too. Would you expect anything less from the brains that brought you Nest, helping save energy?
Interested in checking it out? Use this link and Byrd's will get a commission, which will help offset the costs of closing the store.
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