What you will learn
- How household enrolment and organics cart distribution are managed
- How organics routes differ from ordinary waste rounds
- What a compost site tracks from intake to finished compost
- How contamination is measured and reduced
- Which program metrics convince a city to expand or stop
What the project is
An organics program diverts food scraps and yard waste from landfill to a composting site. Households enrol, receive a cart or caddy, and set out organics on a scheduled day. Collection runs on its own round, because organics cannot ride with general waste, and loads go to the compost site rather than the landfill. At the site, feedstock is weighed, mixed to a recipe, turned and monitored through the composting process, and eventually screened into finished compost for sale or distribution.
The software holds that whole chain together. It manages enrolment and cart inventory, plans organics routes, records site intake and process stages, and tracks contamination rates by route and neighbourhood. Contamination is the program's central metric: a route with high plastic contamination produces poor compost and can lose its processing outlet, so the system has to show where contamination happens, not just that it happens.
Core features
The features that decide a program's fate are enrolment, contamination tracking, and site operations. Everything else is reporting on top of those three.
- Household enrolment with address, cart size, and start date, plus cart inventory and replacement tracking.
- Organics route planning and driver apps, adapted to the lighter, smellier, and more frequent nature of organics rounds.
- Site intake recording: load weights, feedstock types, and source routes, so finished compost can be traced to its inputs.
- Process tracking: pile or windrow stages, turning schedules, temperature and moisture readings where monitored.
- Contamination audits by route and load, with photos and rates that show trends rather than single incidents.
- Resident feedback: contamination notices and guidance sent to households on routes with rising contamination.
- Finished compost inventory and distribution records, including giveaways, sales, and municipal use.
How it is built
Start with enrolment and contamination, because those decide whether the program survives its first year. Site process tracking can follow.
- Program design: define eligible areas, cart types, collection frequency, and the contamination standard the site requires.
- Enrolment and routes: build household enrolment, cart tracking, and organics rounds for the pilot area.
- Site operations: record intake, process stages, and finished compost for the pilot's loads.
- Contamination loop: audit loads, report rates by route, and send household feedback where contamination rises.
- Expansion reporting: produce diversion tonnage, participation, and contamination trends for the decision to expand.
Tech considerations
This is mostly a workflow and reporting product. The technical decisions are about route data, audit records, and resident communication.
- Route planning shared with or adapted from the waste collection system, with organics-specific frequencies.
- Mobile audit forms for contamination checks, with photos attached to the load and route.
- Resident messaging via email or SMS for enrolment, cart delivery, and contamination notices.
- Weight integration from site scales where available, with manual entry fallback.
- Dashboards for diversion tonnage, participation rate, and contamination rate by area and over time.
Challenges to plan for
Organics programs fail on participation and contamination, rarely on software. The software's job is to make both visible early.
- Low enrolment: a program that only reaches enthusiastic households never diverts enough tonnage to justify its round.
- Contamination spikes: one bad route can spoil a site's feedstock, and without route-level data nobody knows which route.
- Smell and pest complaints: organics rounds that slip in summer generate complaints that erode political support fast.
- Finished compost outlets: a site that cannot move finished compost eventually runs out of space, whatever the collection numbers say.
Who it is for, and honest limits
This fits cities and counties running organics diversion, compost site operators, and haulers contracted for organics rounds. It fits less well for a single community garden compost heap, where a notebook and a rota are honestly sufficient.
It does not make residents compost. It makes enrolment easy, contamination visible, and the program's results provable. Behaviour change still needs outreach, clear guidance, and consistent collection.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as contamination in organics?
Plastic bags, packaging, glass, and metals in an organics load. Requirements vary by site: some accept compostable liners, others do not. The program's accepted list should be published and matched in the audit form.
How is contamination measured?
By auditing loads or carts: sorting a sample or inspecting setouts and recording the contamination rate. Route-level rates over time matter more than any single audit, because they show where education is needed.
Do households need an app?
Not necessarily. Enrolment can happen by web form or phone, and feedback can arrive by email or SMS. An app helps only if residents will actually open it, which is an assumption to test, not a given.
What happens to finished compost?
It is screened, tested where required, and distributed: sold, given to residents, or used on municipal land. Inventory records should show where each batch went.
Can the program include businesses?
Yes, and food businesses often generate the largest organics volumes. Commercial organics need separate collection agreements and contamination standards, because a restaurant's load differs from a household's.