Group Lead, Ved Krishna
Hello, hello! We all know the importance of end of use in compostable products – so we decided to go straight to the source! This week it’s Jennifer Trent, the president and Linda Norris Waldt, the Deputy Director, of the US Composting Council. We can’t overstate the importance of communication bet
0:00 – Introduction to US Composting Infrastructure and Jennifer's Mission
Jennifer Tredway works on building composting infrastructure in the US. She opens with an honest picture of where the sector stands: growing faster than before but still dramatically underpowered relative to the volume of organic waste being generated.
10:00 – Soil Health and Why Compost Is More Than Waste Diversion
Compost’s value is not just diverting organics from landfill. Jennifer explains the soil science, from carbon sequestration to drought resilience, and argues that regenerative agriculture creates structural demand for high-quality compost that the US is not yet positioned to supply.
21:00 – Funding Composting Businesses Through USDA Programmes
The USDA’s Food Waste and Compost Cooperative Agreement is one of the better-funded grant programmes available to composting entrepreneurs. Jennifer explains how it works, what it covers, and how it fits alongside other federal and state mechanisms.
32:00 – The Push for National Compostable Packaging Standards
Without consistent national standards for what counts as compostable, composters can’t reliably accept packaging and brands can’t make credible end-of-life claims. Jennifer explains the push to establish those standards and why getting the packaging and composting industries to agree is harder than it should be.
43:00 – Visual Inspection, Technology, and Sort Line Solutions
Composters need to identify acceptable materials at the sort line, ideally quickly. Jennifer explains the current state of identification technology, why visual inspection is still dominant, and what a rapid visual identification system for compostable packaging could mean for contamination rates.
54:00 – Home Composting, Backyards, and the Consumer Scale
Industrial composting handles volume, but home composting makes composting accessible to millions of households without collection programmes. Jennifer talks about the role of backyard composting alongside industrial systems and why lowering the barrier for consumers matters.
65:00 – Stadiums, Large Venues, and Anchor Programmes for Infrastructure
Large event venues generate enough organic waste to anchor a regional composting programme. Jennifer explains how stadium composting programmes work and why they often become the starting point for broader community-level infrastructure development.
76:00 – The Future of Composting in America — Scale, Community, and Soil
Jennifer closes with a vision of distributed composting operations, a growing community composting movement, and a sector that finally has the scale to match the ambitions of the brands and consumers who want to use compostable packaging.
Let’s come together!
