Partnerships Open Door to Land Access for Composting
This case study was originally published in Keep Compost Local, a report offering survey data, case studies, and policy recommendations to equip governments to collaborate with local composters and foster community prosperity.
Municipality and Interviewee: Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, Sarah O’Keeffe, Director of Sustainability & Climate Justice
Community Composter: Rust Belt Riders Composting LLC (Daniel Brown and Michael Robinson, Co-Founders)
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
The City of Cleveland, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Cleveland Metroparks have partnered separately with Rust Belt Riders Composting LLC (Rust Belt Riders) to provide food scraps drop-off services. Founded in 2014, Rust Belt Riders is now a worker-owned cooperative that offers curbside and drop-off food scraps collection to businesses, residents, schools, and other locations in Cleveland and the surrounding area. It uses several area composting facilities to process the food scraps collected. For a number of years, Rust Belt Riders has been seeking property for its own larger-sized composting facility in the City of Cleveland. In 2024, it identified an unused City-owned property that had formerly been a waste transfer station.
In March 2025, the Cleveland City Council authorized the City to enter into a ground lease with Rust Belt Riders for the use and occupancy of the unused six-acre City property. The worker-owned cooperative initially opted to lease the site from the City to be able to continue to partner on grant applications, but financing proved to be challenging without the land as collateral. In August 2025, the Cleveland City Council authorized the City to sell the parcel to Rust Belt Riders for fair market value, less environmental-related costs. The single location will house composting, soil blending, packaging, distribution, feedstock receiving, and a retail space to sell Rust Belt Rider’s soil products. The projected project cost to operationalize the site is about $6.5 million.
In 2024, the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability was awarded a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Composting for Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) grant for $340,961 to help the City expand residential food scraps drop-off locations, increase waste diversion and access to composting services, and provide subsidized monthly subscriptions to composting services to SNAP eligible households. The City partnered with Rust Belt Riders to establish eight new residential food scraps drop-off sites with the grant funds. The fee to use the drop-off sites is $12 per household per month. SNAP-eligible households who sign up for one of the 250 free memberships will also be able to use the eight existing Rust Belt Riders’ drop-off sites within the City of Cleveland, for a total of 17 SNAP-eligible sites. Materials accepted include a wide range of food scraps, food-soiled paper, and BPI-certified compostable products.
Rust Belt Riders also has a partnership with Cleveland Metroparks to provide food scraps drop-off locations in 32 city parks. The partnership began in 2024. There is no contract between Rust Belt Riders and Metroparks. “The parks are host sites like others we have, so we have a very simple access agreement with Metroparks like we do with all of our other site hosts,” explains Daniel Brown.
Municipal Motivation
The City of Cleveland’s 2025 Climate Action Plan (CAP) includes an objective to reduce solid waste sent to landfills by residents and businesses by 50% by 2035 (CAP goal 2, objective 6). A Community Priority in the CAP is to “require all new residential and commercial properties to have the infrastructure for recycling and food waste collection containers, along with their trash containers, and provide guidance retrofitting existing properties to meet these requirements.” Having infrastructure in place in the city to collect and process food scraps is a cornerstone of meeting the CAP waste diversion goal and implementing the Community Priority. The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability had experience working with Rust Belt Riders through a successful pilot in 2022 to establish a food scraps program for the City-owned, 100-year-old West Side Market, which features a variety of food vendors. A sole-source contract was awarded to Rust Belt Riders; the City paid for the program using a $60,000 grant awarded to Cleveland Neighborhood Progress by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Rid-All Green Partnership (Rid-All), an urban agricultural center and community education hub in Cleveland, composted the collected food scraps.
Rust Belt Riders team member overseeing production of tilth soil. Credit: Steven Springer, Rust Belt Riders
“The role of government in this space, in my view, is to set up the public policy environment for businesses that want to push the envelope, especially on climate change and also addressing embedded environmental challenges,” explains Sarah O’Keeffe. “We want those businesses to survive in our current context. They need to show a return on investment. There is no reason they can’t do that. And now, a worker owned enterprise is building a composting facility that will help the City achieve its climate goals. What could be better!” She adds that having an existing relationship via partnerships with businesses like Rust Belt Riders is important: “The chance of something going sideways is diminished due to these relationships.”
The role of government in this space, in my view, is to set up the public policy environment for businesses that want to push the envelope, especially on climate change and also addressing embedded environmental challenges. We want those businesses to survive in our current context. They need to show a return on investment. There is no reason they can’t do that. And now, a worker-owned enterprise is building a composting facility that will help the City achieve its climate goals. What could be better!
Sarah O’Keeffe, Director of Sustainability & Climate Justice, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
Operations team member servicing drop-off toter. Credit: Steven Springer, Rust Belt Riders
Incoming food scraps pile. Credit: Steven Springer, Rust Belt Riders
Team member transferring collected food waste. Credit: Steven Springer, Rust Belt Riders
USDA Grant Logistics
The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability’s positive experience with Rust Belt Riders and Rid-All for the West Side Market led the City to include their services in the USDA grant application. The new drop-off sites established with the USDA grant funds have been selected to ensure equitable access to drop-off infrastructure, aligning with the City’s 15-minute city index for maximum geographic and population coverage, notes O’Keeffe. The Office of Sustainability collaborated with the City’s Department of Urban Analytics & Innovation, using GIS maps with population density and public transit accessibility data to identify locations. Included in those selected are several neighborhood resource and recreation centers and community development corporations. “Our goal is that by the end of the USDA-funded program in 2026, 90% of Cleveland’s population will have access in less than a 15-minute walk from a drop-off location,” says O’Keeffe.
The grant funds cover expanding the City’s existing educational composting training programs and establishing a Community Compost Ambassadors program conducted by the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, with at least one Ambassador trained and active throughout the grant period in each food scraps drop-off area (17 total). A $1,400 annual stipend is being paid to resident Compost Ambassadors. The City is managing the public awareness campaigns and is tracking the impact in terms of quantity and quality of public engagement. Rid-All is involved in workforce development, facilitating creation of composting-related green jobs. Rid-All’s training program had 12 compost trainees, who processed food scraps dropped off at its urban farm in early 2025. A second cohort will be formed in early 2026.
Composting Site Development
To arrive at the point of getting the City Council’s approval of the lease in spring 2025, Rust Belt Riders appeared before six different Council committees, including city planning, finance, and public works. “I had to go in front of them in a certain order,” says Brown. “We’ve completed the remediation phase of the site and have done geotechnical surveys of the property to determine the weight capacity. The asphalt is very old, and we need to replace it before any construction can get started.” The property is zoned appropriately for composting. Rust Belt Riders needs a Type 2 permit from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to accept all types of food scraps. The facility is being sized to process 5,000 tons per year of food scraps.
Compost produced at the new facility will be certified for use in organic agriculture, yielding a higher value per cubic yard, adds Brown. “It’s equivalent to selling $100 worth of compost that we are able to produce for $10.”
Rust Belt Riders is raising money to help cover capital costs for the new facility by issuing a new set of shares that impact investors, individuals, and organizations can buy. “It functions like a debt instrument, but these investors get board representation,” explains Michael Robinson. “We are
unwavering in our commitment to being a worker-owned enterprise, which is not venture capital friendly.” The Cleveland Foundation has given Rust Belt Riders $750,000 at 3.5% interest, which gives the company a good start. The City of Cleveland is providing $50,000.
Contractual Agreements
Rust Belt Riders’ contract with the City of Cleveland expires at the end of the USDA CFWR grant funding period on May 31, 2026. The drop-off site infrastructure deployed will remain in place through the end of 2026.
Composting Activity
Educational signage at food scraps drop-off site. Credit: Steven Springer, Rust Belt Riders
Only preconsumer food scraps will be accepted at the new composting facility, along with wood chips and other carbon amendments. Rust Belt Riders has existing clients who generate preconsumer feedstocks that are very clean, essentially eliminating challenges with contamination. Postconsumer food scraps collected at the drop-off locations are hauled to the Earth ‘n Woods composting facility in Peninsula, Ohio.
The property has an 8,000-square-foot building with “four walls and a leaky roof” that will be used for the company’s retail store. In Phase I, a pre-constructed steel structure is being built to house an aerated static pile system with reverse aeration to control odors. The steel structure (versus fabric) is necessary in order to put solar panels on the roof. Rust Belt Riders is installing heat recovery equipment supplied by Agrilab Technologies. The recovered heat will be used in a building housing its bagging operations. Curing and screening will take place outdoors.
Outreach & Education
Both the City of Cleveland and Rust Belt Riders are involved in outreach and education, including social media posts, for the food scraps drop-off locations. Recreation Centers were given large-format posters to promote the program.
The City of Cleveland attended tabling and outreach events. Compost Ambassadors are also a large part of outreach and education, attending events in their neighborhoods. Compost Ambassadors check the site monthly and make sure everything is in working order, and assist neighbors with questions.
Compost Markets
The City of Cleveland has not had a contract to procure compost from Rust Belt Riders in the past, although it does purchase compost for tree remediation and to green vacant properties.
Costs & Benefits: City of Cleveland
The City of Cleveland does not have its own infrastructure for food scraps diversion, and relies in part on grants to offer services to residents. Having existing relationships via partnerships with businesses like Rust Belt Riders and nonprofit organizations like Rid-All enables the City to work toward reaching its Climate Action Plan goal of reducing solid waste sent to landfills by residents and businesses by 50% by 2035. According to Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District’s Annual Report, the City of Cleveland sent over 133,000 tons to the landfill in 2024. That same year, reports the District, less than 1% (1,124 tons) of organics were recycled.
Costs & Benefits: Rust Belt Riders
Participation in the USDA CFWR grant builds on Rust Belt Riders’ preference to use drop-off sites to collect residential food scraps. Of its approximately 4,000 residential subscribers, 90% are signed up for drop-off and 10% subscribe to curbside service. It also services about 315 commercial food scraps generators, some with multiple locations. “The fact that we still do pick up is a holdover,” says Robinson. “Households that subscribe are willing to pay for the convenience at a cost of $45 per month. If we have a good enough margin, we will continue to offer it.”
Subscribers to its drop-off program all pay $12 per month for access. That includes contracts Rust Belt Riders has with other municipal governments in the region. “The $12 fee is based on our configuration of service and the total amount of money we need to continue building out the program in other jurisdictions,” explains Robinson. “We are treating municipal contracts like our commercial contracts, charging cities by the tote for pickup. Key is to show the economic benefit from this kind of arrangement.” He adds that the City of Shaker Heights received a grant from the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District and is able to offer residents food scraps drop-off for free.
The new composting facility is expected to increase the company’s efficiency and will create jobs, especially when it is operating at full capacity. “Job growth equates to revenues, so to the extent that the new site brings in more money at full capacity, we could support a total of 50 full-time employees from our current 30,” says Brown.
PPP Lessons Learned
City of Cleveland: Public-private partnerships are helping decrease greenhouse gas emissions, a key goal for the City of Cleveland. Among the City’s lessons learned are:
Have initial conversations with potential partners. “You need to connect,” says O’Keeffe. “It may be a matchmaking process through philanthropy or a federal, state, or local grant opportunity. People have lots of connections to make receiving that funding a reality. This is important because former industrial cities like Cleveland don’t have funds, especially for new things. The City is already taxed with meeting existing obligations.”
Once access to funding is received, be as innovative as possible and achieve a proof point [of success]. That has to be accomplished. “What is really exciting about Rust Belt Riders and the City working together is that we are focused on problem solving and iterating on how to advance goals like circularity and lift up examples in Cleveland that are successful,” adds O’Keeffe. “Once we have a couple successful little programs, there is no reason bigger ones can’t happen.”
Use data from earlier pilot projects to make the case for future grant funding. In Cleveland’s case, data from the pilot at the West Side Market was used in the USDA grant application.
The City worked closely with Rust Belt Riders on the application, and built the case for “achieving a more equitable composting service for Cleveland residents. “We also emphasized a key circularity goal of creating nature-based solutions,” notes O’Keeffe. “The grant highlighted the City partnering with a worker-owned business and an urban farm (Rid-All), employing Clevelanders in good green jobs that are where they live, and siting drop-off bins where there is accessible transit. We imagined a program that has all of these things that layer in goals of the City.”
A strong existing partnership with Rust Belt Riders enabled the conversation with City officials about providing access to land that the City was not using. “We were already partnering, and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a place right here to keep this going?’” recalls O’Keeffe. “Dan Brown’s thoughtfulness and insights made it possible to connect all the pieces, plus he and Michael Robinson have been able to navigate the private side of making a composting facility in Cleveland a reality.”
Rust Belt Riders: Foremost, working with a municipality on land access has been a lesson in patience, notes Brown. “We learned how critical it was for Rust Belt Riders to build relationships with the City for the past decade. It made it possible to tap into the goodwill we created in our discussions and negotiations for the composting site property.”
We learned how critical it was for Rust Belt Riders to build relationships with the City for the past decade. It made it possible to tap into the goodwill we created in our discussions and negotiations for the composting site property.
Daniel Brown, Co-Founder, Rust Belt Riders Composting LLC
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