Hi Alex,
I really hope this project of your is going well for you because this idea defines reusing for sure. By using natural materials and waste materials to build composting units. Simple, cheap, and effective to produce natural nutrient rich soil to sell to farmers for a profit. With that profit you would be able to design larger more efficient compost units that will be able to produce more product therefore more profit. By starting small in your community, you are able to get local restaurants and houses to give you their food waste so you can work out problems that occur on the small side. As you grow in size, you will be able to work out problems that occur and be able to fix them quickly without major losses in the profit margin. The more businesses you have donating their food waste to you company the less those companies will have to pay for disposal of waste. All in all it is a great idea and can have a very big effect on the food waste and really shrink the sizes of landfills that are being filled with organic biodegradable products such as food.

A couple things that could be a problem with this idea are how much material will be produced from a yard of materials and also how long does it take for worms to break down the food to a useable soil. If the worms are not able to produce the needed amount to sell then a customer may back out of an agreement take his losses and go somewhere else. If the process is efficient and consistent with the production of material then farmers won’t have a problem buying into your company that produces extremely nutrient rich soil. Now during the planting season, in some areas, have limited time for prep and need to plant their crop right away. Farmers many need a large amount of material in short time. Does this process take a long time to produce a useable amount of material? For big orders, are farmers going to have to order well in advance of getting the material? These a just a few little problems that could slow you down but as you become bigger and more advanced these problems won’t be a bother for long. This idea has potential changing this food waste battle around and start attacking it and lessening the issue. I really like the idea and it has great possibilities.

A few problems that I see with this idea are how much are these new food waste can going to cost the consumer? If they are going to minimize or eliminate the smell factor of the decomposition of raw food, to me that sounds a little pricey. Some consumers may not want to spend the extra money for the food waste can and take the easy way out and toss their food in the trash. There’s also going to be three can on the curb, this extra can will slow down the waste collection crew. Today most of the collections trucks are either a “trash truck”, “recycling truck”, or a combination of both utilizing a split hopper system. Now since there is another element being added to the collection process, either new trucks are going to have to be designed to incorporate the food waste or a separate truck is going to have to follow behind and existing collection truck to pick up just the food waste. Yes there are going to have to be questions answered for this system to work but I can see this system being very user friendly in how it will function. I think this idea has major potential to be very effective and successful in the future and would be able to achieve the goal of zero food waste.