Soiled Expectations

Bellingham now requires residents to use the FoodPlus! composting program, which highlights the complexities and difficulties of a changing system.

The Skagit Soils composting center looks out onto an area of industry.

Story by Lars McDonagh // Photos by Natalie Taylor

March 20, 2025

Carl Pietrantonio first heard of the program on Facebook. He lives alone and doesn’t have much of a yard. When he learned he would be charged for a weekly 60-gallon compost bin, he wanted nothing to do with it. 
“It was stupid; it's a fixed price. It's the same price for everybody, whether it's a family of six or one person,” Pietrantonio said. “Why should I pay the same amount as somebody that's dumping a huge bin of leaves or grass clippings or branches or they're feeding six people? They got a lot of food, garbage and stuff. It's not right, and it's also too expensive.” 

Pietrantonio isn’t alone in feeling pressured to compost.

Those who have never composted before in Bellingham feel they are being met with an unfamiliar system that threatens pending costs and unfair labor. To others, requiring composting is an important part of efforts to promote sustainability, limit waste and fight climate change.

The city of Bellingham and the private company Sanitary Service Company signed a contract to change the city’s waste management system as we know it. The organic waste management program FoodPlus! gave customers the option to compost food products and yard waste. As of February 2025, it is now mandatory for all Bellingham single-family residents.

Sanitary Service Company did not respond to requests for comment.

Tevon Lautenbach, General Manager of Skagit Soils shows the different composting systems.

Washington state law gives insight into the importance of the new program amidst the backlash from residents. 

In a strategy to address climate change through methane gas reduction, Washington state passed the Organics Waste Management Law in 2024. By 2025, the state pledged to recover 20% of all discarded edible food and by 2030 divert 75% of organic waste from landfills. 

Steam billows off a pile of compost next to a machine processing it.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates one-fourth of all waste in landfills is food. Including other compostable materials in the calculation – yard waste, wood, paper and cardboard, for example – brings the percentage of compostable materials being thrown out up to half. This loss of food has cost the U.S. $495 billion annually, the same amount of money spent globally on renewable energy. 

When food is sent to a landfill, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Instead of returning nutrients to the soil, organic matter rots and produces greenhouse gases equivalent to the annual energy use emissions of 7 million homes. 

To combat these emissions, the organics law takes a holistic approach to manage the life cycle of compost, from working with collection services to broaden their programs to convincing cities and counties to purchase the compost produced from residential waste.  

Because more organic waste is being collected, there needs to be a market for the compost created. To fill the market gap, the Washington State Department of Ecology has required cities to report compost sales through the Compost Procurement Ordinance. Washington plans to release compost market performance data at the end of March 2025.

“We’re in the very early stages right now, in early 2025, of understanding total businesses that now have curbside programs versus those that did not ahead of the law,” said Cullen Naumoff, the organics lead with the Washington State Department of Ecology. 

Bellingham is just getting started in their journey and laying the groundwork for cities that will soon have to follow suit.

“Bellingham is ahead of the curve on meeting statewide requirements because we are adding the organic waste service for single-family residential SSC customers before we are required by the state to do so,” Stefanie Cilinceon, public works communications and outreach coordinator for the city of Bellingham, said in an email. “This proactive approach allows us to advance our waste reduction and climate action goals, while also sharing the lessons we have learned from this process with other cities who are impacted by the state laws.”

Different kinds of mulch and compost are organized into different categories based on their unique properties.

A composting system is more than just throwing food into a pile and letting the worms have their fill. Composting on a commercial scale is an expensive, time-consuming task, according to Jeff Gage, certified composting professional.

“The biggest misconception is that it's easy,” Gage said. “The reason that’s a misconception is that it happens naturally, without interference from humans. However, once humans start collecting it and concentrating it, it’s no longer easy.” 

Sanitary Service Company delivers residential waste to the composting facility Green Earth Technology that diverts approximately 20,000 tons of material annually. This material is then processed and sold as finished compost, mulch and soil. 

Green Earth Technology did not respond to requests for comment.

It’s more common for facilities to use raw manure rather than digested compost. Though this process takes less time and energy at the forefront, the nutrients in raw manure fade much quicker. Compost that has gone through the anaerobic digestion process can last up to three years, whereas the nutrients in raw manure last less than three months.

Not only do fewer nutrients make it to crops, but they get washed away during the rainy season. It ends up in our water systems and eventually into our drinking water.

“The Natural Resource Conservation Service works with farmers to reduce the loading of nutrients into watersheds,” Gage said. “They do that by supporting them [in] developing composting systems.”

Gage has worked with many composting organizations, including Skagit Soils Inc., where he helped fine-tune their composting system.  

To Tevon Lautenbach, general manager of Skagit Soils, this fine-tuning has paid real dividends. As Lautenbach traversed the gravel and soil of the industrial compost site, the smell of decomposition filled the air with a thick scent. Seagulls flocked to the enormous piles, feasting on the decomposing fish that lay beneath.

“As I've gotten to work with compost, my love for it's just grown through learning about it,” Lautenbach said.

However, Lautenbach has worked in the compost industry and was raised in a family business of waste diversion facilities in Skagit County. Bellingham residents’ experiences, like Pietrantonio, are vastly different. 

“I probably won't even bother with the thing, because I'll have almost nothing to throw out there, but it should be based on usage or something, or number of people, or I don't know what, but it's not right,” Pietrantonio said. 

Lautenbach understands how the new laws can be frustrating, especially when each county has different requirements. 

Trucks waiting to be used tower over workers at Skagit Soils.

“Unfortunately, until some laws change and we can get more counties on the same page and work to find a unanimous qualification for composting, it's gonna be really hard,” Lautenbach said. “As a consumer, you get confused and you end up putting your stuff in the garbage bin at that point.”

In response to residents who don’t have enough compost to fill the 60-gallon bin, Bellingham supplied a waiver allowing residents to forgo the mandatory service. 

The city has also supplied an application to reduce utility bills. Residents are eligible for reduced utility rates if they are seniors or adults with disabilities who have an annual household income of $52,000 or less. 

Jeri Halpine, Bellingham resident and compost enthusiast, says that we need to compost but can’t put the financial burden on residents. 

“When people are struggling to put food on the table and to make sure that they can cover the cost of rent and other necessities for life,” Halpine said. “It can be a financial hardship for them to have to pay for this composting service.” 

As for those who will be paying for the service, their dollars go to equipment, land, workers, electricity and more. What residents pay to compost is often just for sites to break even. Selling compost is where profit comes in – but only if the process creates quality product.

Gage says that “wishful recycling” reduces the quality of compost. Wishful recycling is the practice of recycling or composting items that can’t be recycled or composted in the hopes that they can. Reduced compost quality makes it a more expensive practice. 

Evening light falls on Skagit Soils machinery and surrounding snowy fields.

“The reality is anything you put in that isn’t really compostable is just garbage, and it ends up making the product look bad, so you don't want to buy it.”

Gage said a great way to support the systems built around us is to be knowledgeable consumers by purchasing recyclable material and purchasing recycled products such as compost. 

“Buy stuff that’s grown in compost. Ask, as a consumer, ‘do you guys use compost when you’re growing your stuff?’” Gage said. “And try to do it locally. That way you’re strengthening the economies and the sustainability of the system you’re participating in.” 

Naumoff says with so many stakeholders impacted by the new laws, the transition to sustainable organic waste services isn’t going to be perfect right off the bat. With two children, she feels proud when her kids ask her what bin a waste item belongs to, but understands waste separation is new for many people and it will take time to adjust. 

“We’re not necessarily thinking tomorrow everyone is going to turn on the perfect organic management system. But really, we want those first graders today to not think twice about putting the orange peel or coffee grinds [in the compost],” she said. “I think that’s what these laws are really setting into motion.”

In a study done in The Journal of Environmental Education, researchers found that introducing composting technologies to residential buildings promoted learning about food waste. In learning how to sort their waste, residents reduced the amount of food waste they produced. 

“The challenge with implementing this early is that we are navigating this process for the first time and can’t lean on other cities to provide guidance and support, who have already gone through this process. We are also waiting for more guidance from the state regarding exemptions.” Cilinceon said in an email. 

Gage says if you can’t manage your wastes on your own, people must take responsibility by participating in the systems designed for the communities they are a part of. 

“If we don’t get this right, we’re going to keep on going the way we’re going and it’s hurting our homes, it's hurting ourselves and that's just stupid,” Gage said. “We know how to do it, systems are in place, they just need to participate.”

Gulls gather on steaming dunes of compost to keep warm and ward off parasites.