Frequently Asked Questions

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!

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.

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.

Each bin is secured with a coded lock. After sign-up, you’ll receive the access code via email for your selected bin, along with the bin’s address and specific location details.

This is completely up to you! Many people use a small kitchen pail that fits on their countertop, one of our 4-gallon collection buckets, or any old 5-gallon bucket. You can also store your food scraps in tupperware and keep them in the freezer.

Moisture accelerates the decomposition process, creating a happy environment for mold and flies. Less moisture = cleaner bucket.

Use one or more of the following tips to reduce or avoid moisture:

• Freeze your food scraps
• Layer food scraps with dry items (like paper towels, paper napkins, paper bags, and cardboard)
• Keep the lid off your bucket (which allows moisture to evaporate. Replace the lid with a towel if you still want a cover).

You can also use a liner to create a barrier. Paper bags are preferred (they compost the best) but we also accept Biobag-brand liners.

Clean your bucket after drop-off. Wipe the inside down with a paper towel or dried leaves from your yard. If no cleaning supplies are used, toss that paper towel in the bucket to compost! Or, designate a compost bucket sponge and clean out your bucket in the sink with soap and water.

We offer sliding-scale payment options, between $5 and $20 per month, that allow households to pay what they can while participating in Cincinnati’s household composting efforts. We also realize that some households do not have the capacity to pay for service. If this applies to you, please reach out to us and we’ll send you an access code for free sign-up.

Commercial service cost depends on a variety of factors, including weekly poundage, how often we collect, and number of carts collected. Reach out to us for a quote customized to your organization’s needs.

We generally service within the I-275 loop. This is not a hard and fast rule, so reach out to us if you’re on the edge and we’ll let you know if you fall within our service area.

Pickups are scheduled based on your volume and facility needs – ranging from every-other-week collections to multiple pickups a week. Most of our customers receive weekly collections.

We want you and your staff to feel empowered about composting! We’ll walk through what we do and don’t accept, review why composting matters, and answer any questions you and your staff might have.

We weigh every cart we collect so we can report to you how many pounds you diverted from landfills. Using data from the US Composting Council and the EPA, we can convert these pounds to carbon emissions saved by avoiding the landfill. This formula compares composting food scraps to landfilling them and doesn’t account for the distance those food scraps traveled. Because we are working with local farms and gardens, often our distance traveled from collection to farm is shorter than the distance those scraps would have taken to the landfill, making the impact even greater than the data we can report. That’s why we let you know which farms and gardens your scraps went to support: farms and gardens right here in our community, growing food for all of us.