A Detroit company wants to know whether an autonomous robot can make composting food waste more environmentally friendly.
Each week, Scrap Soils drives a truck around the city, picking up food waste from homes and businesses, and transports it to a local farm where it is turned into compost.
Food is the most common item thrown into the trash where it decomposes and releases potent greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 8% of human-caused global emissions each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Composting eliminates the emissions and creates a nutrient-rich addition to soil. But for companies like Scrap Soils that are driving around to collect the compost, there’s a tradeoff from the greenhouse gasses produced by driving.
The nonprofit composting service is confident that using a robot will be a good way to address the issue.
“We believe that there’s less of a carbon footprint associated with using an autonomous vehicle,” said Ricky Blanding, executive director of Scrap Soils.
The autonomous robot that Scrap Soils is using for a pilot program to transport food waste. Credit: Courtesy photo Credit: Courtesy photo
In June, the company began testing out the theory by using a small robot to gather food scraps from approximately 15 homes and transport them to the Corktown farm Brother Nature for composting. The robot comes from the Santa Monica-based startup Ottonomy.io. The robot can reduce carbon emissions for small-distance deliveries by nearly 40%, according to Ottonomy.io Co-founder Ritukar Vijay.
Meanwhile, Scrap Soils is collecting data on logistics, the market and benefits of the program.
“It’s looking very promising that this way is something that would make more sense,” said Blanding, adding that he hopes the unique program will help grow the nonprofit’s small membership base.
Founded in 2020, Scrap Soils charges $15 per month for weekly food waste pickup for residential customers and a minimum of $70 for commercial customers. The food waste is made into compost at Scrap Soils’ main partner, Sanctuary Farms on Detroit’s east side. Scrap Soils also has a weekly volunteer group called Scrap Pack, which works on sustainable projects around the city from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the last Saturday of each month.
In partnership with Orange Sparkle Ball, an Atlanta-based innovation agency, Scrap Soils received a permit in January from the city’s Office of Mobility Innovation for the robot pilot in the city’s Transportation Innovation Zone. The zone extends from Martin Luther King Blvd., to I-96 to the Detroit riverfront, and the Lodge. Other projects piloted in this zone include a robot to help pedestrians safely cross the street, air quality monitors, and a program to increase trust around digital technology used at Michigan Central.
After its permit expires July 14, Scrap Soils will publish the data and next steps, according to the permit approval letter.
If anything, the robot has been helpful at making more people interested in composting, he said.
“Scrap Soils has been hauling food waste around the city since 2020, so seeing people so excited, and seeing all of the commotion… this robot has made a lot of people very curious about what composting is,” he said.
It’s attention that could be helpful to get Detroit households – the biggest contributors to the roughly 251 million pounds of food waste in the city each year – to finally compost.
To learn more about composting check out our partner Planet Detroit’s guide for Detroiters to urban composting: https://planetdetroit.org/2024/05/a-detroiters-guide-to-urban-composting/.