The Mather’s Green Team has successfully implemented composting at The Mather’s two towers and can now divert up to eight tons of compostable waste from landfills. Here’s how they shepherded this plan through their organization.
The Mather Evanston’s environmentally focused Green Team was formed in early 2022. Immediately, residents requested a composting program, especially new residents whose former hometowns had such programs. However, there was no space for in-ground composting, so the team focused on recycling.
Then, in the summer of 2024, Erlene Howard, a founder of Collective Resource Compost Cooperative, made a presentation at a Green Team meeting about their composting program. The Team was impressed and requested a proposal for a food composting program that considered The Mather’s two towers plus gardens and included containers for resident use.
Collective Resource submitted a proposal to supply The Mather Evanston with four 32-gallon totes (bins), two for each garden. These bins would be replaced weekly with clean bins and fees would be based on how many totes were included in each week’s swap.
The Green Team thought this program was perfect for The Mather. However, since the Green Team did not have a budget, they made a proposal to The Mather Possibilities Fund, a fund that could be used to create programs that are not necessary for The Mather to function but are desired by residents. Mather’s garden committee, building services committee, management of building services and executive director were involved in preparing the request, since they would be involved in implementing the program.
In mid-September 2023, The Mather Possibilities Fund approved the Green Team’s request for funds, and the composting program began at the end of that month. Because the food waste program exceeded expectations almost immediately and because of the cyclical nature of the gardening program, the garden waste part of the program was dropped.
The Green Team presented the composting program to residents with flyers and recurring composting tables in each lobby that explained what could be used for composting. The rollout stressed the program’s simplicity— all types of food waste would be accepted, unlike recycling which was full of exceptions. Residents can collect as much as eight tons of food waste annually in four bins!
Currently, the composting program is included in The Mather Evanston 2025 Budget, so composting is now a permanent feature of The Mather Evanston’s waste management program. Interested citizens made a difference!