New Rockford compost business looks to curb food waste from entering landfills
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A new worker-owned collective wants to help Rockford residents keep their food waste out of the landfill and instead turn it into nutrient-rich soil.
Nettle Curbside Compost launched last week with its subscriber-based home pickup, which is offered weekly or biweekly. Customers fill their 4-gallon square bucket, seal the lid and leave it at their door for the company to oversee the decomposition into healthy soil.
“We want to make it something that just becomes a habit,” Kate Whitacre, part of the company’s trio of owners and workers, said Tuesday during pickups in a hybrid Toyota. “It’s easy. You stick out your compost with your garbage and your recycling and we do all the dirty work for you.”
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The curbside service is just one part of the vision for the company owned and run by Whitacre, Megan Devine and Jessie Crow Mermel.
They envision a future where soil created from compost could be sold to organic farmers or used for residential gardens. They also hope to use the soil to grow flowers for local florists.
The trio is operating from land that formerly housed Dennis Early Childhood Center until it was razed in November 2019. The 7.38-acre plot was bought from the R1 land bank by an S corporation tied to artist Brett Whitacre, a celebrated local muralist and husband to Kate Whitacre.
The land will serve as home base for Nettle’s composting operations and agricultural center. There will also be prairie restoration, a climate-controlled hoop house, a fruit and edible-food forest and a pre-engineered building that will serve as Brett Whitacre’s art studio.
Before that vision takes shape, the focus will be on building a subscriber base and composting habits in Rockford. The company also plans to take on business customers and it handles compost collection at special events, including the upcoming Golden Hour in the Grove at Severson Dells Nature Center.
Nettle accepts fruit, vegetable and plant-based scraps such as rice and bread for compost. You can also drop in coffee grounds, eggshells, bits of paper, cardboard boxes and other vegetation. You can see its dos and don’ts HERE.
Right now, the pickup area covers a large swath of Rockford, as well as portions of Loves Park. The owners say they will expand their coverage area in the future and will look for feedback from residents outside of their service area to determine where to grow.
“We love our folks who are already composting on their own. We just want to make it accessible for people who aren’t composting yet,” Whitacre said. “Or for the local folks who do compost on their own, if they reach capacity in the wintertime and they realize they have to stop composting — we pick up year-round.”
Food waste is the largest component in the country’s landfills, taking up nearly a quarter of the space, according to the National Environmental Education Foundation. It also causes 58% of methane emissions at municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Wasting food in the U.S. causes greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 50-million gas-powered vehicles, according to the EPA.
“Composting is so simple and it’s an actionable step that we can all take that really does make a difference,” Whitacre said.
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Composting here can also help keep material out of the Winnebago Landfill, which has about 11 years left in its life cycle before it reaches capacity, according to the 2024 Illinois Landfill Disposal Capacity Report.
The practice also gives residents a proactive way to care for the environment, said Mermel. Much of environmental activism involves fighting against destructive forces, she said, but composting provides a positive and forward-looking method.
“People might think that it’s gross — decomposition — but it’s incredibly valuable,” Mermel said. “You’re taking what would otherwise be a waste product and turning it into a valuable asset.”
Mermel said Nettle wards off potential pests and odors at its compost site by using cardboard and untreated wood shavings to keep the food waste covered.
The company’s worker co-op model recognizes the value of all the different labor and skillsets, Devine said. As the company grows, future employees will have the opportunity to become part of the ownership. That gives the worker/owners a say in how profits will be used.
“It gives me more of an incentive to wake up in the morning knowing that I get to decide,” Devine said.
Devine said the business model also puts community over competition, with Nettle working with several other local companies toward its goals.
She said she hopes to see more community members embrace composting “to have a relationship with the Earth and feel like they’re making a difference,” Devine said. “My hope would be that people can feel that, even if it’s just from their apartments or from their stoop”
The company’s name derives from nettles, a common plant that is often underappreciated for its potential health benefits. Mermel said composting is similarly often underappreciated. There’s another tie-in, too. Nettles can be stingy or prickly — so can changing consumers’ habits.
“Nettle can be a verb, like we’re nettling or we’re poking at a system and trying to rebuild it,” Whitacre said.
“Once you start composting and you actually see how much waste you produce that is organic matter that could be composted it is really painful to throw it away,” she said. “You’re like, oh my gosh, I could be making soil with this.”
Fast facts | Nettle Curbside Compost
Owners: Megan Devine, Kate Whitacre, Jessie Crow Mermel
Cost: $19/month for biweekly compost pickup; $29/month for weekly compost pickup
Online: nettlecompost.com
Contact: nettlecompost@gmail.com
Can you compost it: See the answers HERE
Social: On Facebook HERE; and Instagram HERE
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas
