Kent food scrap pickup that becomes living compost
Weekly residential compost pickup in Kent, OH. We provide the sealed bucket and bokashi bran, collect your scraps, and turn them into monitored, living compost for local soil.
At Haymaker? Start here →
Pickup day: Tuesday.
How it works
Three steps. Your scraps. Our mess. New Life.
1We drop off a bucket
You get a clean, sealed, tight-lid, square 4-gallon bucket delivered to your door. Plus bokashi bran to keep things fresh and odor-free.
2You fill it up
Toss in approved scraps throughout the week. Sprinkle a bit of bokashi bran on top after adding scraps to eliminate odors.
Yes: Fruit & veg scraps, coffee & tea, paper waste.
No: Meat, dairy, plastic, excessive fats, oils or liquids, pet waste.
3We swap it weekly
Set your bucket out before pickup day. We grab the full one and leave a clean one. Subscribers get finished compost back every spring and fall!
On the drop-off plan? Same swap, you just bring your bucket to our farmers market table instead.
Different scraps want different homes
New Life Soils routes organic material based on producing the best output: hot compost, worm castings, fungal-rich leaf mold, or specialty blends.
Worm bins
Best for: coffee grounds, soft plant scraps, and carefully balanced carbon.
Produces: highly nutritious and biologically active vermicastings. Perfect for seedlings, garden beds, and soil biology. Makes excellent compost tea.
Hot compost pile
Best for: weekly food scraps, yard waste, leaves, and shredded carbon.
Produces: General purpose, biologically active, and stable living compost. Use it for your garden, lawn, containers, and more.
"Cold" fungal pile
Best for: Spent brewing grains, leaves, wood chips, mushroom substrate, and other carbon-rich inputs.
Produces: loamy, fungally dominant, foresty, peat moss-like compost. Excellent for trees, shrubs, perennials, lawns, succulents and potting mixes.
We track each system with sensor technology.
Every batch is logged and monitored continuously for temperature and moisture. Ensuring our pile gets hot enough to sterilize seeds and kill pathogens. Also this data tells us when to turn, which stage the pile is at, and when the curing is done. The data tells us, not the calendar.
What this means for customers
- Cleaner buckets: bokashi bran reduces odor before pickup, sealed lids contain odors and keep pests out
- Better finished compost: inputs are balanced and verified with sensor data.
- Local soil and amendments with real process notes made from local inputs.
Simple, transparent pricing
Monthly Pickup
Weekly curbside pickup in Kent. Month-to-month. Pause anytime.
- Includes: Sealed Uline bucket, bokashi bran, bucket liner.
- Yes: Fruit & veg scraps, coffee & filters, tea (no staples), eggshells, plain paper/cardboard.
- No: Meat, dairy, fats & oils, liquids/soups, packaging/plastics (incl. "compostable"), pet waste.
Add-on: extra bucket per pickup (+$5).
Start monthlyAnnual Pickup
Same weekly service, paid once for the year. Save $84 compared with monthly.
- Includes: All the same options as above, just at an effective cost of $25/mo.
- Plus: Preference for compost returns. Your choice of vermicastings or general purpose compost.
- Best for: households ready to make composting a normal weekly habit but cannot or do not have the means to handle the messy part.
Choose annual and we'll follow up within 1 business day with your secure checkout link.
Request annual signupHaymaker Drop-Off
Same service, you bring the bucket. Weekly, year-round.
- Includes: Everything in the pickup plan — sealed Uline bucket, bokashi bran, same accepted materials, same spring & fall compost return.
- How it works: Bring your full bucket to our table at the Haymaker Farmers' Market any Saturday. Swap it for a clean one with fresh bran. Takes a minute.
- Best for: households already heading to the market on the weekend, or anyone outside our pickup route.
Restaurant or Business?
We accept everything — meat, dairy, fats, bones, and all organic waste. As-needed pickup, per-pickup pricing, and terms built around your operation.
Get a Custom QuoteFood Scraps Guide
Plants-only for now. Want to compost meat & dairy? Join our Meat+ waitlist.
Yes, please
- Fruit & veg peels, skins, and cores (seeds and all except stickers/labels).
- Coffee grounds and tea, filters and all (no staples).
- Paper towels/napkins, uncoated or non-shiny paper/cardboard.
- Egg shells, cooked eggs, solid dairy (cheese) and shellfish shells.
- Old or unwanted leftovers (minimal liquids).
- Hamster, guinea pig, or other herbivore bedding made of wood shavings, saw dust, or paper.
No, thanks
- Meat, liquid dairy, fats & oils.
- Soups, excessive liquids, fats & oils.
- Produce stickers, twist ties, rubber bands, shiny paper, packaging.
- Dog, cat, or other pet waste or litter, diapers, wipes, or human waste. Just no.
- Harsh cleaners/chemicals (on paper towels).
Soil products, made in Kent
The finished goods from the systems above — screened, batch-monitored, and made 100% from local inputs. Available at our farmers market table.
Worm Castings
Pure vermicast from red wiggler worms fed on local food scraps. Dark, crumbly, and loaded with beneficial microbes and gentle, plant-ready nutrients.
How it's made: We pre-compost local food scraps, then feed them to our indoor worm bins. The worms digest everything over several months, and we harvest and screen the finished castings.
- Potting & seed starting: blend 10–20% castings into your mix.
- Transplanting: a small handful in every planting hole.
- Top-dress: ¼–½ inch around the base of plants, then water in. Repeat monthly during the growing season.
- Worm tea: steep 1 cup per gallon of water for 24 hours, then water your plants with it.
Gentle enough that it can't burn plants. A little goes a long way — it's a concentrate, not a mulch.
Living Compost
Traditional hot compost made from Kent yard waste and food scraps. Dark, earthy, screened, and biologically active — it feeds your soil and the life in it.
How it's made: Each pile is built to a balanced carbon-to-nitrogen recipe, and our sensors verify it holds 130–150°F long enough to kill weed seeds and pathogens. Turned repeatedly, cured for weeks, then screened.
- Garden beds: spread 1–2 inches on top each spring or fall and lightly rake in.
- New beds: mix about 25–30% into your native soil.
- Containers: up to ⅓ of your potting mix.
- Lawns: top-dress ¼–½ inch and rake in.
Don't plant into 100% compost — it's a soil amendment, not a potting soil.
Mushroom Compost
Spent substrate from gourmet mushroom growing — the material the mushrooms grew in, threaded through with mycelium. Weathered, leached of excess salts, and sifted fine.
How it's made: After the mushroom harvest, the substrate weathers outdoors so rain leaches out excess salts. Then we break it down and sift it to an even, crumbly texture.
- Mulch: 1–2 inches around trees, shrubs, and perennials.
- Soil conditioner: mix about 20% into beds to add organic matter and hold moisture.
- Lawns: the fine texture rakes easily into thin or bare spots.
Go light around seedlings and acid-loving plants (blueberries, azaleas) — it runs slightly alkaline.
Where to buy
Find us Saturdays at the Haymaker Farmers' Market in downtown Kent — or email / text us to ask what's in stock and current pricing.
Pickup subscribers get finished compost back every spring and fall — included with the service. See pickup plans.
Why your compost tumbler failed (it probably wasn't you)
Most people who "can't compost" were just sold the wrong equipment. We're putting together a free Composting 101 session for Kent — no sales pitch, just how to actually make it work at home.
Tumblers are the usual culprit
They're marketed as the easy option, but they're too small to hold heat, awkward to turn once loaded, and they stay soggy. People follow the instructions, get a wet stinking drum, and conclude they're bad at composting. They aren't — the tool is.
Stacking worm trays disappoint too
The multi-tray bins sold for beginners tend to run wet at the bottom, and worms don't migrate up on schedule the way the box promises. Same outcome: people blame themselves and quit. A simpler setup outperforms them for less money.
What actually works
A simple bin built from hardware cloth and decent support beats almost every retail product, holds real volume, breathes properly, and costs a fraction of the price. We'll show you how to build one and how to feed it.
Get notified when we schedule it
We're working on dates with the Kent Free Library and campus groups at Kent State. Leave your email and we'll tell you when and where — that's all we'll use it for.
Invite us to speak
Run a garden club, a campus environmental org, a scout troop, or a neighborhood association? We'll come present for free. Composting is one of the few climate actions people can genuinely do themselves, and it's much easier than most folks have been led to believe.
Rather skip the mess entirely? That's what our pickup service is for. See plans.
What makes us different?
Closed Loop
Your scraps never leave Kent. The compost you get back is made 100% from local inputs.
Soil First Standards
Engineer-led process using sensor technology for biologically active compost. Each batch is monitored and tested. It's alive!
Clean & Easy
Square bucket, sealed lid, odor neutralizer, clear rules, weekly swaps. We do the messy part.
Meet your compost crew
Eduardo
I started New Life Soils to make the messy part of composting easy and accessible for everyone. I handle the buckets and piles; you get living compost and a cleaner conscience.
- 🌱 Scraps collector
- 🌱 Pile turner
- 🌱 Gardener
- 🌱 Engineer
Benito Certified Good Boy
I love the outdoors, especially digging, fetching sticks, and rolling in anything smelly.
- 🦴 Quality-control sniffs
- 🐾 Company morale
- 🦴 Squirrel diplomacy
Service area & schedule
We serve Kent and surrounding areas with pickups every Tuesday.
Outside the area? Drop us a line — we're growing.
Residential food scrap pickup for Kent households
New Life Soils is a local compost pickup service for Kent, OH residents who want to keep food scraps out of the landfill without managing a pile at home. We provide the sealed bucket, include bokashi bran for odor control, pick up weekly on Tuesday, and return finished compost to subscribers during gardening season.
The focus is hyper-local: Kent scraps become Kent soil. That keeps the nutrient loop close to home and helps build better soil for local gardens, yards, and future growing projects.
Our finished products — worm castings, living compost, and screened mushroom compost — are sold Saturdays at the Haymaker Farmers' Market in downtown Kent. See our soil products.
FAQ
Do you accept meat or dairy?
What about the smell or pests?
What do I get back?
How does the Haymaker drop-off plan work?
Can I buy your compost without a subscription?
What is bokashi bran?
How is this different from other composting services?
Can I pause or cancel?
What if I miss a pickup?
Get started in 2 minutes
Fill out the form and we'll confirm your first bucket drop for Tuesday.
Outside our area? Email us with your ZIP and we'll let you know when we expand.
Policies
Refund/Cancel: Cancel before your pickup day. Missed pickups roll to next pickup or can be rescheduled for $10. First reschedule is free.
Privacy: We only use your info to run your service. We do not harvest your data. We use a trusted third-party POS system (Stripe) for all transactions. We only store your contact information.
Contact: We reply within 1 business day.