An Eco Bite with Rust Belt Riders

An Eco Bite is a "mini” episode of Eco Speaks CLE. In this shorter format, we reconnect with a past guest or showcase someone new, all in under 15 minutes. In this quick episode, we catch up with Rust Belt Riders and founder Michael Robinson to find out what's new with our favorite worker-owned food waste composting company in Cleveland, Ohio.

We first interviewed Rust Belt Riders back in 2022. It was our 4th episode, and we had Dan Brown and Zoe Apisdorf on the show. Since then, Rust Belt Riders has developed new city-supported drop-offs, new commercial infrastructure, and expanded its production of soil and Tilth Soil brand. This cooperative model could scale community composting nationwide through alliances with members of the Community Composting  Coalition. We hope you will enjoy this episode and be part of the story by purchasing Tilth Soil at local retailers and signing up for one of Rust Belt Riders' residential or commercial composting services. 

Transcript

Diane Bickett 0:04

You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the Eco Curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett, and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together, we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn, and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello, friends, and welcome to our first mini episode of EcoSpeak CLE. In this shorter format format, we reconnect with a past guest or organization to catch up on what they've been doing and what's new. And we'll do it all in 15 minutes or less. And today we're catching up with Rustboat Riders and founder Michael Robinson. Michael? Hi. Hi, how are you doing?

Michael Robinson 0:46

I'm good.

Diane Bickett 0:47

Rustboat Riders was our fourth EcoSpeaks episode back in 2022. We had Dan Brown and Zoe Apisdorf on the show. Since then, your commercial and residential food waste programs have continued to grow along with your soil production and sales through Tilth. Congratulations.

Michael Robinson 1:04

Thanks. Thank you.

Diane Bickett 1:05

Yeah. So tell us why don't we start with your residential services and what's new there?

Michael Robinson 1:11

Yeah, so our focus this year for residential services is on municipal partnerships. We've seen a lot of success in working with different cities to pick up the tab for their residents to compost, usually setting up drop-off programs at different locations people are already going. So for example, one of the Shaker Heights locations is at the library, but we also try to partner with schools and parks and stuff like that. So people that people are or places that people are regularly frequenting and they can bring their food scraps along with them and drop them off in the drop-off bin. So currently we're working with Beechwood, Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, working on hopefully figuring something out with university heights. But those those municipal partnerships are really where we're seeing the biggest impact for diversion.

Diane Bickett 2:02

Okay.

Michael Robinson 2:03

Yeah.

Diane Bickett 2:03

So you have how many drop-off locations do you have outside the city drop-offs?

Michael Robinson 2:08

Yeah. So there are about 52 drop-off locations. Yeah.

Diane Bickett 2:12

And uh I utilize your service. I pay 12 bucks a month and I get to drop off my food scraps at Lowe's Greenhouse. So that works out great.

Michael Robinson 2:20

Yeah. So there's still a distributed network of drop-off locations for folks whose cities aren't currently providing the service for them. But if that's something that you're interested in, we would love to talk with you about maybe applying for a grant to be able to do a pilot program so that your municipality can see what the diversion impact is in a pilot program. And then from there we can stand up something a little bit more long term. But we've had a lot of success in finding some grants to just do a pilot and see how it goes, and then from there build the program into the city's budget.

Diane Bickett 2:51

So yeah, it'd be nice to see some on the west side.

Michael Robinson 2:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, please reach out to us and we'd be happy to go with you to whether it's a department of sustainability at the city or a council person who's a champion of these kinds of initiatives. A lot of the different cities also have sustainability plans or, you know, basically things that they put together to be able to hit metrics over the years to move the needle in terms of climate resilience. And this is a really great way to drive down the greenhouse gas emissions from the methane and also the application of the compost can do the carbon sequestration. So awesome.

Diane Bickett 3:26

So residential services. You started with your commercial service division where you're picking up food scraps at restaurants and things. What's going on there?

Michael Robinson 3:35

Yeah, so we've got a couple of exciting developments. One is we're exploring roll-off services this year. And by roll-offs, I mean 20 to 30 cubic yard containers. Wow. Uh similar to the you know, the big dumpsters you see out there on the street by construction sites. Some of the larger generators of organic residuals or food scraps, they need that type of infrastructure because of the food processing, food manufacturing that they're doing.

Diane Bickett 3:59

So more than a tote.

Michael Robinson 4:01

Yes, yeah, much more than a tote.

Diane Bickett 4:03

So you get into manufacturing facilities. Like, do you have like a customer in mind?

Michael Robinson 4:07

Yeah, yeah. I think they're, I mean, there are the region has quite a few, I think, that would be really good fits, but some folks that I think would be great partners would be like Garden of Flavor could be one. Another option would be potentially a partnership with Nestle, Stofers, something like that. These larger scale generators. And it's a bit of a it's an infrastructure change and an infrastructure investment on our end because it's a totally different way of moving the material around. You've got to have different training, different trucks, different bins, and those bins also have to be watertight. These aren't your average, you know, dumpsters that are on the construction sites. It's actually a specialized piece of equipment so that it's convenient to use and you know, we're not leaking all over anybody's parking lot.

Diane Bickett 4:48

So that's awesome.

Michael Robinson 4:49

Yeah. So that's a big focus of ours. And then also continuing to this, you know, the standard suite of services with restaurants and and cafes, yeah, hospitals. A big one recently has been partnerships with schools and school cafeterias. I love it. So we're really pumped about the partnership with Parma City Schools, Lakewood City Schools. Yeah, and again, and that also builds the relationship with the municipalities as well, is getting in with the schools. And then we get to do the educational component, which is also really important for our work because that's kind of where the the momentum and the long-term vision comes from, is being able to work with students and and talk about some of the other scientific elements of the work.

Diane Bickett 5:27

I'd love to see some of your soil come back to the school if there's a if there's a school garden, vegetable garden. Yeah, for sure.

Michael Robinson 5:34

Yeah, we are working with a few schools on that. I know Hawkins, we're working with some Hawkins students recently, and I believe they're using a seed starting mix that we use. So yeah, there's uh actually a couple of different partnerships that we have cooking to be able to get the soil back to the students to connect them to that whole closed loop.

Diane Bickett 5:48

Okay. Let's talk about your your processing capabilities and your search for a a location to to expand your operations.

Michael Robinson 5:58

Yeah. So the reason we're we're still able to do this work today after so many years is through partnerships that we've had with local partners. So we're we're really excited to continue to partner with Kurtz Brothers and and Earth and Wood and North Canton. So they do some of our processing. And without those types of partners, we'd be we we couldn't possibly process all the material we're picking up today without the help of some of these additional processing partners. There's simply not enough composting infrastructure in the region to handle all the material that we're bringing in. So we have to bring it to other partners. We did about 4,500 tons of material in 2025.

Diane Bickett 6:37

Wow. That's a lot.

Michael Robinson 6:38

So a milestone for us.

Diane Bickett 6:40

Um is there is there an image you can associate with 4,500 tons? No, but I'll come up with one because that's a really good question.

Michael Robinson 6:47

Like how many, you know, Cleveland Brown stadiums is that? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I I'll think about that. No, 4,500 tons. I yeah, nothing comes to mind, but it's a lot. Yeah, it is a lot. It is a lot.

Diane Bickett 7:00

That's great. Yeah, I know you've been working on finding a a site for a long time to be able to consolidate some of your composting operations and soil production operations. Tilt soil. So we wish you luck with that.

Michael Robinson 7:16

Thank you. Yeah.

Diane Bickett 7:17

And hopefully it will be in Cuyahoga County.

Michael Robinson 7:20

Yeah, that's the idea. We want to build our own processing infrastructure. So, like I said, the we we currently have a great network of partnerships, but the vision is for us to have our own facility in Cuyahoga County. If we had it our way, it would be in Cleveland proper. Um and because we want we want to be able to bring bring the jobs to the city. We want this work to be and and the facility to be a feather in the cap of the city. So yeah, cur still making progress. We're working with architects. I know Nathan, who's been on the show in the past too, I think, might have shared a little bit about the systems that we're using. So it's an aerated aesthetic pile system. We're looking to do heat recovery to be able to capture the heat from the compost and heat the buildings and stuff with it.

Diane Bickett 7:57

So Okay. So speaking of Nathan Rutz, who is also on the show, he he managers Till Soil, your soil production facility. What do you have new going on there?

Michael Robinson 8:08

Yeah, the the focus for us this year as far as direct to consumer products is we've got we're focusing on bulk material, bulk deliveries. So if you need compost for your landscaping, for your flower beds at home, around the house, or around your trees, we do deliver by the cubic yard to your house. We do our own internal deliveries.

Diane Bickett 8:27

Okay.

Michael Robinson 8:28

But we've also added 12 retailers that are carrying the product over the past few months. So we're going to Bremex is one. Sugrin Pet and Garden out in Sugar and Falls area. Lakewood Garden Center carries the product. You can also get it at is it Bremex Lakewood Garden Center.

Diane Bickett 8:47

Okay. I'm sure you have a list on your website.

Michael Robinson 8:49

There is, yes, that's absolutely right. There's a list on the website with a map and stuff as well.

Diane Bickett 8:52

So okay. If I wanted to order, pre-order my bulk delivery, when should I do that? Like right now?

Michael Robinson 8:58

Yeah, as soon as possible. We're gonna get booked up. And so as soon as we're no longer able to do the deliveries ourselves, then we have to outsource the delivery, and that's gonna be more expensive than if we were able to bring it to you in our own truck. So if you're interested in bulk compost, place the order as soon as possible, and we'll start booking because once our truck is booked up with deliveries, it's booked up. So yeah, get your orders in now and and we'll schedule you out for when you need it.

Diane Bickett 9:23

Okay, excellent. You've been very active nationally, I've noticed on LinkedIn with the Ohio Composting Association, the national compost is it the National Composting Association?

Michael Robinson 9:36

Yeah, the U.S. U.S.

Diane Bickett 9:38

Composting Council, thank you. You mentioned earlier that you're developing a network of like rust belt rider type operations across this country to support each other. Yeah. What do you want to tell us about that?

Michael Robinson 9:52

Yeah, so we've been active in the community composting coalition for about eight or nine years now. And it's a group of composters that are coming to the work from a place of environmental justice, social justice, regenerative agriculture, climate resilience, right? These are all values that we're bringing to our work. And it's nice to know that we're not the only ones that are that are coming to that, coming to the work from that place or doing this work. Uh out here, we are a little bit on an island, and there are some composters around, which is great. Nathan recently elected president of the Ohio Organics Council, so that's that's really exciting. That's the local state chapter of the U.S. Composting Council, uh, which is the National Industry Organization. But I mentioned, so we're also we started on the steering committee for the community composting coalition for a while, and we are in the middle of a feasibility study and needs assessment of about 400 other composters in the U.S. And the idea is we're gonna see where we might be able to collaborate in order to scale. So a lot of times, especially in the early days of starting the business, folks are like, what are your visions for scale? Uh, how are you gonna achieve scalability? And when we, you know, folks probably know we converted to worker ownership in 2021. So we're an employee-owned cooperative. And our vision for the company was never to exit to a larger competitor or to necessarily do a franchise model, but rather essentially it's a cooperative, another type of cooperative, often referred to as a shared services co-op or a sales and marketing co-op. But we don't know exactly what these groups can do together, but we do know that we can leverage collective power to be more competitive in the marketplace. And that could look like anything from buying stuff together in bulk to get a new price. We all buy toters, most of us buy toters. What if we placed our toter orders by the truckload instead of by the stack? So that's one example of a purchasing co-op. Another example on the marketing side of things is we ship tilth soil all over the United States. And I know that there are great composters all over the United States. So we would like to be able to market and grow the tilth brand and tilt sales to a place where potentially the other composters in this network might be interested in agreeing on some standard operating procedures, some specs, some recipes that we would then share. And there's an opportunity for all of us to make and sell tilt soil, turning it into a national brand. Maybe somebody, you know, maybe we decide to tweak the brand or something like that. It would ultimately be up to how we want to do and what the group wants to do. But a lot of folks usually don't realize Lando Lakes, for example, is actually a distributed network of farmers that are all making and selling product under one brand name. So we could think about this as maybe the Lando Lakes of Soil Blends and Compost.

Diane Bickett 12:40

That's a great comparison. Yeah. Yeah, I totally get it now. Well, you guys never rest on your laurels. You're always growing and always experimenting, and you just work this so hard. And that's why you're you've been very successful since 2014. Yeah, 2014. Since you were riding around on a bicycle. Yep.

Michael Robinson 13:02

No, it's it's been uh really community support through and through. We wouldn't be here without the relationships that we've built over the years with, you know, the city of Cleveland, with county. It's yeah, I really like to think it's a testament to the to what we can do through our relationships and the team. And obviously, like the there are 37 people on the team right now, and I'm just so grateful to be able to work with such an awesome group of people that are passionate about the work and also you know, holding all the contradictions that come along with being a successful business in the context of everything that's going on.

Diane Bickett 13:35

So you're a great example of a homegrown company, and I I think all our listeners can support you by becoming a residential customer and you know, buy some soil. Yep.

Michael Robinson 13:48

Yeah, the book your orders now and we'll get you on the calendar for bulk soil. You can find the retailers that sell the soil blends at the different at the map uh on our website. So you can go to our website and find the retailers that carry the soil. And you can also sign up for residential services online. Yeah. So thanks again for having us on to share an update. We're excited. We got a lot cooking right now and looking forward to continuing to grow.

Diane Bickett 14:10

All right. Well, thanks for doing a great job with our first mini episode. And we did it right on time. So all right. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me. We hope you enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. Help us spread the word by inviting a friend to listen and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you want to go a step further, consider becoming a subscriber. Visit our website, ecospeakle.buzzsprout.com, and click the support the show link. Thank you and stay tuned for more inspiring stories to come.