When Tim Bennett founded Bennett Compost in 2009, the sustainability landscape and general awareness around waste management in Philadelphia was wildly different than it is today. At that time, few American cities had municipal composting programs, and outside of having the outdoor space to compost your own waste, a luxury few Philadelphia residents could afford, composting was a foreign concept, if it was known at all.

Now, composting is a visible and growing practice nationwide, with many private companies rushing to fill the gap that municipal waste management systems, sadly, have failed to address. Composting is a simple and effective way for individuals and households to turn food waste into rich, fertile soil. Unlike decomposition in a landfill, the composting process significantly reduces methane production, one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Companies like Compost Now, Waste Not Compost, and Compost Cab have risen to meet growing interest and demand across the country, and here in Philadelphia, we are lucky enough to have Bennett Compost.

In light of their recent merger with Circle Compost, and because we at Solo are big Bennett fans, using the service ourselves and sharing it with our tenants, buyers, owners, and friends, we sat down with Tim Bennett to talk about how he built the company and how Bennett Compost has grown right alongside Philadelphia.

When Bennett graduated from Temple University, he decided to stick around Philadelphia rather than return to his hometown of Rochester, New York, or head elsewhere. Renting a second-story apartment in South Philadelphia, composting appealed to him, but he didn’t have the physical space to do it himself.

As Bennett puts it, “I wasn’t super into sustainability, but I was mindful and trying, and I thought this stuff was interesting and cool and important. Looking around, I didn’t see a place to take it, or someone who would take it for me, a neighbor with a yard, anything. That was the genesis of maybe there is something here, an idea for a business.” Composting felt like an easy thing to do that could have an impact, “but it felt hard to do because there was no way to do it!”

So Bennett decided to start a business that would meet that need, for himself and for others. “I wanted to start a business, and I wanted it to be a business that had a larger purpose,” he says. “My honest thought was that this probably won’t work, but it will teach me something for the next business.”

He started by posting flyers in his neighborhood, trying to see if anyone else might be interested. “For the first couple of months, nine or ten people were interested,” Bennett recalls. But when he secured a table for his new company at Greenfest Philly, a large environmental festival, which sadly hasn’t resurfaced since 2022, he was blown away by the response. “I left with over 100 email addresses. I was like, oh, there is something here. I thought maybe I was the only weirdo, but there are other weirdos like me out there!”

In those early days, Bennett learned how to compost by doing it. “When I first started, there weren’t many composting companies to learn from. There was some municipal composting happening on the West Coast, but the internet wasn’t as searchable then, so I didn’t see many examples.” He modeled his collection process after how the city handled trash and recycling and learned composting through trial, error, and a lot of reading. “Initially, it was just, let’s try it out.”

As the business grew, so did collections, and so did awareness around sustainability in Philadelphia. “I feel like there’s a growing recognition of why we need to do things like composting,” Bennett says. “It’s a much less hard sell now than it was when I started.” Early on, many of his calls came from transplants who had composted in places like San Francisco. “Now our customers aren’t doing it because they did it somewhere else. They want to compost here. The city has grown around these ideas.”

As the company has flourished, Bennett Compost has expanded to work directly with businesses as well as individuals and institutions. Today, they partner with organizations like Philadelphia Parks and Recreation to compost in parks, playgrounds, and recreation centers, and with the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, composting food scraps and offering paid internships as part of an early-release program for formerly incarcerated individuals.

“We’re working with probably 150 businesses these days,” Bennett says. “We don’t discriminate about why people come to us. There are better ways to handle waste, and people are recognizing that. There’s a great personal-to-business pipeline. People do it at home and then bring it into their workplaces, asking to do it there, too.” People want to make the right choice, but too often it feels very hard. “The easier you can make the sustainable choice, the more people you can bring to the table.”

By investing, literally, in the soil of our communities, Bennett’s reach is vast, from processing food waste to creating and selling compost and soil for urban farming, local gardens, and devoted plant owners. This even includes a collaboration with Bottle Underground to create Gritty, a succulent-specific soil blend.

Bennett Compost also works with Philadelphia, not just in what it does, but in how it collects waste. “The amount of bike collections we do really speaks to Philadelphia,” Bennett explains. “This is a big, dense, old city, and a bikeable one.” Before the Circle merger, close to 40 percent of collections were done by electric bicycle. Residential collection between Lehigh and Washington, and a bit below, is entirely electric bike pickup. “I think this is the largest bicycle curbside collection in the country, and that feels like a very Philadelphia thing to celebrate.”

The recent merger with Circle Compost speaks to both the growing desire to compost in Philadelphia and the growth of Bennett Compost itself. “Circle brought the idea of a merger to us, and it felt like a no-brainer,” Bennett says. “They’re a group of smart, talented, hardworking people. You’d go to a block and see half Bennett buckets and half Circle buckets. Now we can consolidate, use one vehicle, and be more efficient.” Looking ahead, the merger also positions the company to support future citywide composting efforts, keeping solutions rooted in Philadelphia.

Of course, we would love to see municipal composting become standard, especially in a city like ours. Until then, Bennett Compost helps Philadelphia residents contribute in meaningful, habitual ways to making the city, and our own lives, more sustainable. Waste is easy to ignore, but it represents a huge part of our carbon footprint. Bennett makes sustainability around waste simple by design.

“I want this to be an easy process,” Bennett says. “People don’t want to think about their garbage, but it doesn’t disappear like magic. Just because it disappears from the curb doesn’t mean it’s gone.” Transparency is key. “We tell people where we’re taking their waste. We do public tours of our facility and invite people to come see what we’re doing. Don’t just trust us. Come see it. That demystifies the process.”

As Bennett Compost continues to grow with Philadelphia, including through this exciting merger, we’re happy to know our Bennett buckets are headed somewhere better each week. Our compost is reborn as soil that will nourish gardens across the city. Companies like Bennett Compost, deeply invested in Philadelphia and in our collective sustainable future, help all of us love where we live.

Interested in learning about composting? Read our composting 101 guide. You can also learn other ways to reduce your environmental footprint through our Four Ways to Minimize your Waste Footprint in Philadelphia or our list on 5 Things Philly Renters can do for the Environment. If you’re a Solo tenant or owner and want to sign up for a trial offer from Bennett Compost, please e-mail us!