Thanks, Tauner for all you have given Soil Cycle over the past 4 years!
What do you love about Soil Cycle?
I love everything about Soil Cycle. Caitlyn has been the most impressive, fun, generous, thoughtful human/boss/friend/entrepreneur. The crew has been amazing as well! True definition of a team. I've been impressed with the growth of the company over the last several years…its certainly attracts so many of the right kind of people (clients included!!) because it’s seriously the coolest company ever!!!
What is the weirdest thing you have noticed in the compost?
The weirdest thing I've seen…one client regularly had a mysterious yellow/pinkish paste…I could never identify it by smell (never dared a taste test) and it felt like a HIPPA violation to ask. The most startling thing was a big ol pile of human hair, enough to look like it might be still attached to a head! I watch too many horror movies.
What is next on your horizon?
I am taking off back east to my hometown Rockville, MD. I may try to convince a local compost company to let me open up a biking branch and steal Caitlyn's brain-child (with her permission of course). The terrain and infrastructure there is a little tricky there, fingers crossed!
Any words of compost collection wisdom to pass along?
Own the road, kids. Be confident, insert yourself into the flow, make eye contact with drivers, use your hand signals and always keep your helmeted-head on a swivel. Each time we put our bodies at risk out there for our environment we remind Missoula drivers that we belong on the road too and that sharing is caring! Stay safe!
Membership Portal Highlight
Check out these photos of what it looks like for folks using the new membership portal! Members now have the ability to change payment methods, skip pickups, view environmental impact, get products delivered, and even have access to a $10 give $10 referral program. Handy!
Sawdust GOLD
At Soil Cycle, sawdust is an integral, yet under praised, material. This underdog to our composting game allows us to compost year-round in a very small location. We rely on Opportunity Resources woodshop sawdust as an almighty carbon source for our compost. We even use it as a biological cleaner for our compost buckets - easy and light to carry on a bicycle. When leaves are less plentiful, we are incredibly grateful for our neighbors at Opportunity Resources for their sawdust! Sawdust often gets a bad rap in the composting game, but with the amount of high nitrogen of food waste, it is a perfect pair. In your home composting, sawdust can easily throw the balance of your compost pile off, but in the right ratios, it holds moisture and improves texture!
Meet Emma- a volunteer at Soil Cycle!
Emma has been into bicycling since 2011 and lived in Missoula since 2015, and have been involved with Soil Cycle since the early days-- She attended an information session at Imagine Nation in early February 2018 and signed up to volunteer. She says, "Anything bike-related, I wanted to be involved!" Emma volunteered as a cyclist picking up compost for almost a year, from 2018 to 2019. She became a subscriber after moving to an apartment (her previous house had a compost bin) so she could continue her composting! The summer presented a flexible schedule and so Emma started to volunteer at the warehouse turning compost, feeding worms, and helping however she could! She hosted a Facebook fundraiser for Soil Cycle for her birthday this year, because she loves supporting an organization that does so much to save the planet. In her words, "I love that it is local and full circle--while I don't garden, I know many of our members do and their food scraps directly come back to them during the soil give back events. So cool!"
Have a friend who wants to start composting but doesn't have space? Know of a local business that wants to decrease what they are sending to the landfill? Know someone who just moved to town? Send them our way!!! We would love to get them a bucket and get them started!
Hera's Happenings
- WIld cats of the Riverfront hood -
MEOW
Here are just a few of Hera's rather persistent suitors, one of which even came into the warehouse in the middle of the night to visit. We are setting more boundaries these days...
(Don't worry, Hera is spayed! and this post is just a joke!)
Thank You For Your Support!
With Love, from our Board and Crew!
Keep on turning...
