AMES, Iowa — Carissa Moyna's morning route begins at 7:20 a.m.
She's not delivering newspapers or packages, but rather picking up compost from Ames residents.
Moyna, a former Iowa State University student, along with current ISU student Andrew Frank, founded Core Living Compost. They are aiming to make sustainability easy for Ames residents.
"Core Living Compost is a food waste pickup service here in Ames, and so we are bringing convivence and simplicity to pursuing sustainable lifestyles," Moyna said.
Moyna and Frank pick up food waste on Monday and Tuesday.
All customers have to do is throw food waste into a bucket for collection. Right now, Core Living Compost has 21 customers.
Their goal is to get residents in Ames thinking about their food waste.
Moyna noted by residents composting instead of letting food end up in a landfill, they are helping to reduce the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere.
The duo weighs the waste to keep track of all the food waste collected.
"You want to know what impact you're making, and so the main way that we can track the impact we're making with our service is tracking how much food waste we've diverted," Moyna said. "And so as of last week we were at 365 pounds."
The City of Ames has a Resource Recovery Plant where people can drop off their food waste.
"We're seeing an increase on our program and that's one of the nice things about Core Living Compost," Bill Schmitt, the plant's superintendent, said. "They're out there on the front lines talking with the citizens, telling them about the options that are available and giving them the option that wasn't there before."
Even though the company is new, they are already looking towards what's next.
"We're looking at becoming part of maybe homeowners associations so we can be incorporated [with the] association fee," Frank said.
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