Composting business digging for more Wellesley customers

Bootstrap Composter, Wellesley — One of Wellesley’s few and proud Bootstrap Compost customers. Photo credit: Frambes family.

Bootstrap Compost, which has been collecting food scraps from customers in Wellesley for about the past year, says it needs to add more than a dozen households by March to make doing business here sustainable.

Boostrap, which works with both residential and commercial customers in Boston and beyond, returns food scraps in the form of compost to customers who want the nutrient-rich organic matter for gardening (or customers can have the compost donated to farms, community gardens, etc.).

Bootstrap wrote to customers in late December: “As we look toward 2017, however, it’s become apparent that in order to make Wellesley a viable service area for Bootstrap — that is, one where we can make a little profit — we will need to add 15 new households by March. Indeed, here’s some tough love from Bootstrap: compared to other communities of Wellesley’s size, the rate of enrollment for composting voluntarily among residents in your town is … pretty darn low.”

Bootstrap is incentivizing customers to spread the word to potential customers in Wellesley in exchange for service freebies. The business is also trying to get the attention of the town’s Sustainable Energy Committee.

Here’s a look at Mrs. Swellesley’s personal backyard composting operation. Trigger warning for the icky-sensitive: pictures of worms included.

Wellesley Composting — Love my double-chamber composter. It lives discreetly behind my shed, and does such a good job tumbling my raw fruits and veggie scraps, along with some leaves and grass clippings, that there are never any noxious odors. I don’t put a lot of thought into proportions or how many times I spin the chamber per week. I just toss it all in and everything breaks down well enough and in good time.