We will be closing our compost program in May of 2023! 

A note from Dane:

To our dearest compost community

Our GreenerBins Compost Program will be closing its doors permanently at the end of May. Business has been declining for the last few years, and we just can’t keep it going any longer. 

This has been an incredible and truly successful project. Together, since June 1st, 2018, this community has prevented well over a million pounds of food waste from entering our regional landfill. Thousands of cubic feet of rich black gold, made of saved organic matter, now enliven the soil in hundreds of gardens and several farms across Windsor-Essex. Some of our compost has even made its way across the border into Detroit’s community garden scene. Our impact, though small in comparison to the grand scheme of society, is an important step towards a world worth inhabiting, and a future we can proudly set for generations yet to come. 

To every individual and business who has supported the project over the last five years: THANK YOU. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. What was once a twinkle in some university kid’s eye became a glorious endeavour to make Windsor-Essex a little Greener. Thank you for supporting our dream and our small business.

 

WHAT’S NEXT?

Our compost program may be closing, but our veggie business is growing. If you need some local organic goodness, you know where to find us.

We will be collecting all compost bins on the normal Mon - Wed pickup days of May 29, 30, and 31st. Please, please leave your bin out on that day!

In summary - it’s very hard to make a summary for the last five years. It’s certainly been an adventure. What I keep reminding myself is that it isn’t a failure, just because it’s ending. Everything is born, and everything dies. GreenerBins was born in a fiery need to “take a stand” in “the fight” against climate change (notice the militarized language) and encourage large-scale activism for a greener world. That was noble, I suppose. Now, my goals are simpler. Growing food, I’m not “fighting” anything. Caring for animals, my heart doesn’t slam against the hostile wall of the industrial world every day. Pruning fruit trees, listening to birds sing, boiling maple syrup, watching the seasons change and the sun make its course across the sky, I’m immersed in what’s real, and what’s important. GreenerBins led me here, and I’m thankful. It’s a gift to see the world from this view. My heart knows that a more beautiful world is possible. But, it doesn’t come from top-down, large-scale solutions. It doesn’t come from intellectual idealizing; a million voices screaming to be heard, but doing nothing. You can’t fight fire with fire. In truth, a more beautiful world comes from the miraculous material of everyday life; it comes from the very small, the everywhere, the overlooked. What if “climate solutions” were just decentralized, grass-roots, micro-regional ecological adaptation? Community-scale resiliency and sufficiency? Simplifying, working less, and loving more? Permaculture, collaboration, and caring for our loved ones? Cultivating not just our gardens, but peace and calm in our hearts. What kind of world would that be?

I’ll leave it at that, friends, along with an enormous thank you again to all of you for accompanying me on this journey. 

With all my love,

D