Local Composting Made Easy

Providing composting services for residents, businesses, and communities in the Cincinnati region.

Let's Start Composting

Outreach

Let’s spread the
joy of composting!

Composting with

local farms & gardens

1.5
million pounds of food scraps collected since 2020

Equivalent to avoiding

4.3

million miles of driving

Find A Drop-Off

Our food scrap drop-off program offers residents affordable, daily access to collection bins. Sign up to use a drop-off location and begin turning your household food scraps into soil today!

Find A Residential Site

Hear From Our Composters

“I've wanted to compost for a while, but I don't garden so I wouldn't have an immediate use for compost, and I'm in an apartment so the techniques I could use to compost at home are limited. QCC overcomes all of those obstacles for me. I really love the sliding pay-scale and the co-op structure too! QCC checks so many boxes that it's hard to imagine a better way to compost.”

– Matthew R.

“Investing in community supported agriculture, cooking delicious unprocessed meals at home, and composting our food scraps are practices that make us feel good! Queen City Commons makes it easy for us to live in alignment with our values - and our trash is lighter, too!”

– Katie H.

“I compost because it’s an easy way to help the planet and cut down on food that sits in my trash can (and the landfill)! I love how inclusive QCC is with their sliding payment scale and that my food scraps support local farms.”

– Greta B.

“It’s important to take care of our planet and that’s hard to do these days. Queen City Commons makes it a lot easier. Using QCC allows me to compost even though I’m in the city — using the drop off bin is as convenient as taking my trash out. I appreciate that QCC offers a low-cost option so I can compost even though I don’t have expendable income. I like their cute quarterly recap emails saying how much we’ve composted. It makes me feel like my contribution matters and like I’m part of a community.“

- Sabrina B

“Composting truly makes me feel like I'm making a positive ecological impact in Cincinnati. I love how simple and accessible this program is. I also love the newsletters - they keep me informed and foster a true sense of community!”

- Bridget R.

“Generating large amounts of trash in general just pains me, but I especially hate diverting nutrients into the landfill when they should be returning to the soil. I love being able to take a short walk to compost all my kitchen waste at a ridiculously reasonable price.”

- Deb W.

“I choose to compost because I like knowing my food scraps go back into my community and support local projects. And, it means my garbage is less slimy and stinky because the food scraps aren’t in there! I like that the drop off sites are available 24/7 and it’s not far from my house.”

- Carri B.

“Queen City Commons is organized and convenient, and a great way to be a bit more sustainable on a local level.”

- Robert Z.

“Love the service. Very accessible, cost effective, and easy for those of us that don't have the space, time, or energy to compost on our own.”

- Bradley S.

The QCC Impact

Queen City Commons is a worker-owned cooperative with a commitment to helping build a diverse composting network in the Cincinnati region. Since 2020, we have been offering organics collection and drop-off to residents and organizations in the Cincinnati area. We partner with farms and gardens in the Cincinnati region to compost everything we collect.

Composting is nature’s way of recycling nutrients from our food scraps, yard waste, and other organic materials so that life can go on. Through the power of microorganisms, composting recovers those nutrients and makes them available again to plants.

The result is compost, a rich, dark soil booster. Compost helps plants grow stronger, keeps soil healthy, and cuts down on the need for chemical fertilizers. On top of that, composting keeps waste out of the trash and reduces harmful greenhouse gases.

In short, composting turns what you might think of as garbage into something that benefits both your garden and the environment.

It’s a business owned and run by the people who work there. Instead of outside owners or a single person making the calls, workers share the decision-making and the rewards. At Queen City Commons, that means the folks collecting your scraps are the same ones guiding the co-op’s future. They’re also passionate composters who live right here in Cincinnati!

What we accept depends on whether you are a resident or business. We generally accept what can be composted in a backyard bin, as well as a few additional items. Check out our compost guide for more details.

When food scraps are sent to the landfill, they break down anaerobically, creating methane. While many food scraps are food we can no longer eat, they still contain valuable nutrients and energy them. Landfilling food scraps not only creates potent greenhouse gases, but it also steals nutrients that would otherwise naturally be recycled into our soils. Composting food scraps ensures those nutrients are recovered and returned to the seasonal cycle, so we can continue to grow food year after year.

Queen City Commons works to maximize our impact by partnering with a decentralized network of farms and gardens. Through this, we can reduce emissions associated with collection by composting as close to the collection point as possible.