Climate Commitment and Compost Procurement Underpin Food Scraps Diversion
This case study was originally published in Mantén el 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: Norman, Oklahoma, Michele Loudenback, City of Norman Environmental and Sustainability Manager
The City of Norman contracts with Fertile Ground Cooperative (Fertile Ground) to collect food scraps from its municipal buildings that are clustered in a complex. The City also procures compost from Fertile Ground to top-dress lawns as part of its Blue Neighborhood Program to protect the watershed. Fertile Ground applies the compost. Fertile Ground is the sub-awardee of a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Composting and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) grant awarded to the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG), a regional planning organization. The grant is for a two-year residential food scraps collection pilot that created 20 drop-off sites in various locations in Central Oklahoma. Three are located in Norman and open to the public.
Municipal Motivation
The City of Norman joined the Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2005. Its plan includes food scraps and yard trimmings recycling. At the time, the City’s franchise agreement for residential trash and recycling collection would not allow it to have a separate food scraps collection contract. Commercial entities were not covered, and a local coffee shop signed up with Fertile Ground for food scraps collection. When the City ended the contract and brought recycling in-house, it opened up the opportunity for food scraps collection. The City executed a contract with Fertile Ground in 2025 to collect food scraps from various locations in its municipal building complex.
Operations team member servicing organics toter. Credit: Fertile Ground
A pile of incoming food scraps and other feedstocks. Credit: Fertile Ground
Team member creating ground cover with fresh compost. Credit: Fertile Ground
Composting Activity
Cooperativa Fertile Ground was founded in 2011 by Terry Craghead after helping to start a small community urban farm. The cooperative provides recycling and composting services for residential and commercial customers in Oklahoma City and the surrounding region. It operates two turned windrow composting facilities behind its warehouse in Oklahoma City on a roughly 1.5-acre asphalt pad (previously a parking lot): a yard trimmings composting site with a solid waste permit and an adjacent food scraps composting site that operates under an Oklahoma Department of Agriculture permit. The windrows are turned weekly using a skid steer and telehandler. Total capacity of both sites is between 5,000 and 6,000 tons per year; the quantity received is closer to 2,000 tons per year.
Economic Development Investment
An angel investor purchased the warehouse property under a lease-to-own agreement. The Alliance for Economic Development – which coordinates land, incentives, and economic tools to attract companies and developers and works closely with the City of Oklahoma City – provided a grant to repair the warehouse’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system; create signage; grade the compost yard; and purchase a conveyor to move materials around the yard.
The zoning where the warehouse is located allows for some level of composting activity, so no rezoning of the property was necessary. However, the property is in a neighborhood with a City park, and Fertile Ground Cooperative needed to get approval from the City’s Parks & Recreation Department to conduct composting activities. That permission was received.
Compost Markets
Fertile Ground primarily sells its compost to backyard gardeners. The City of Norman launched a Blue Neighborhoods pilot project in 2023 that is designed to encourage and incentivize residents to adopt “blue” home and lawn care practices to help improve stormwater quality and reduce pollutants flowing to Lake Thunderbird. One of the practices is top-dressing lawns with compost supplied and applied by Fertile Ground. The City of Norman pays half of the cost for the compost application, and the resident pays the other half. As of August 2025, close to 50 lawns have been top-dressed, using about 67 cubic yards of compost. The City continued the program after the pilot ended.
Costs & Benefits: City of Norman
Fertile Ground’s fee for food scraps collection at its municipal complex was low enough that the City of Norman did not need to issue a request for proposals (nor was another food scraps hauler available in the city). The contract was renewed in January 2025; the initial duration of the service agreement is 36 months, and then automatically renews for a consecutive 36-month term unless terminated in writing by one of the entities with 60 days’ notice. Fertile Ground charges the City of Norman $189 per month to collect its food scraps; there was a one-time setup fee of $175. The City has a large collection cart in one location; smaller bins are in multiple locations around the complex and are emptied into the larger cart.
The City of Norman is incentivized to divert food scraps to help achieve its climate goals and to lay the groundwork for expanded food scraps collection to save on trash hauling and landfill tip fees. Eventually, the City would like to upgrade its yard trimmings composting site in order to process food scraps at the facility.
Costs & Benefits: Fertile Ground Cooperative
Fertile Ground is building route density for servicing customers like the City of Norman; it has a preexisting commercial organics collection route, therefore adding the City makes the route more profitable. “Our average monthly cost is roughly $135 per customer,” explains Terry Craghead. “The bigger picture for Fertile Ground is that we are building a relationship with the City, so that if it decides to offer food scraps collection services to other City-owned facilities, or if they want to start offering residential food scraps collection service for Norman residents, we have a relationship.”
Drop-off program flyer. Credit: Fertile Ground
Drop-off program flyer. Credit: Fertile Ground
Fertile Ground Funding
Fertile ground collection receptacle with educational signage Credit: Fertile Ground
Fertile Ground was awarded $366,000 – of the total CFWR $399,999.79 grant to ACOG – to establish and service the residential food scraps drop-off sites, promote and market the program to households in Central Oklahoma, and to upgrade its food scraps composting facility in Oklahoma City. The drop-off program launched in September 2024 and is free to use; 14 sites have been established in Oklahoma City, three are in the City of Edmond, and three are in Norman (two at businesses and one at the City’s Recycling Drop-Off Center). A wide range of food scraps, soiled paper, household plants, and 100%-BPI certified compostable products are accepted. To use a drop-off site, households need to register, watch an informational video, and take a quiz. They are then given a code to access the bins. To date, close to 400 people have logged in using the QR code. Fertile Ground measures the quantities received at each site; between September 2024, when the drop-off locations opened, and mid-April 2025, 7.2 tons of food scraps have been collected. Locations that are heavily used provide valuable information on markets to target for more participants. Carrying out the collection and composting, and outreach and education elements of the CFWR grant has resulted in one new full-time employee and 50% of an existing Fertile Ground employee’s time.
Once the pilot ends, Fertile Ground’s goal would be for a local government entity(ies) to host the drop-off sites and continue servicing the locations with food scraps collection and composting. Grant funding may be needed to support the initiative.
The bigger picture for Fertile Ground is that we are building a relationship with the City, so that if it decides to offer food scraps collection services to other City-owned facilities, or if they want to start offering residential food scraps collection service for Norman residents, we have a relationship.
Terry Craghead, Founder & CEO, Fertile Ground
PPP Lessons Learned
Team members holding educational signage and compost. Credit: Fertile Ground
Fertile Ground has been able to utilize the ACOG’s and City of Norman’s climate and sustainability goals to advance food scraps diversion. This is counter to the cooperative’s experience of trying to contract with municipal governments to offer recycling collection services where none currently exists.
Ideally, a government entity(ies) would support continuance of the grant-funded pilot food scraps drop-off sites, given the infrastructure for collection is in place and outreach and education have been developed and are being conducted.
Future program development is threatened by elimination of federal grant funding for food-scraps-related initiatives. As of August 2025, Fertile Ground’s CFWR grant was still active.
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