Launching BuckheadCOMPOSTS

If you’re a self-proclaimed sustainability nerd, like me, you might come up with little sustainability challenges like ‘how long can I stay in EV mode when driving my hybrid’ or ‘how little trash can I produce’. There’s something oddly satisfying about looking in your bin at the end of the week and realizing… there’s barely anything in it. Every banana peel, coffee ground, and avocado pit I toss into the compost bin instead of the trash feels like a small victory. I love knowing my “waste” is about to live its best second life as nutrient-rich soil, not spend the next few decades sitting in a landfill.

That’s the fun I want to share with more Buckhead residents.

I’m thrilled to announce BuckheadCOMPOSTS—our brand-new composting challenge for 15 multifamily properties, complete with free composting service for a full year, plus fun events, prizes, and a healthy dose of friendly competition. If you’ve ever taken part in our BuckheadWALKS challenge, you know how competitive this community can get. Now, we’re bringing that same energy to food scraps, and the prizes are much more than internal gratification.

This program has been a long time coming. We applied for the EPA grant back in December, crossed our fingers through funding freezes and uncertainties, and finally got the good news in July—we were awarded the project! A lot of our recent sustainability work has been with companies and property managers, so we’re extra excited to be working directly with residents this time around. We can’t wait to see just how crunchy, sustainable, and creatively competitive Buckhead apartment dwellers can be.

Why are we focusing on compost? Beyond the bragging rights and the fun of the challenge, the impact is huge. The metro Atlanta area sends 48% of Georgia’s food residuals to landfills, generating about half of the methane that comes from those landfills. By capturing food scraps and giving them their “highest and best use” in compost, we’re not only reducing emissions but also supporting a more circular agricultural economy—think healthier soil, less need for synthetic fertilizers, and reduced runoff into our waterways.

This initiative also aligns perfectly with Drawdown Georgia’s top climate solutions, which identified composting as one of the top 20 ways to reduce emissions by 2030. Our goal for BuckheadCOMPSTS is to divert 500,000 pounds of food scraps in our first year. We’re aiming for 15% adoption to start, 30% by six months, and 50% by the end of the year. It’s incredibly ambitious, but we’ve seen how competitive folks get with the walking challenge, encouraging their peers to get involved, and we hope that energy is translated here!

So get ready to tag along as we track each building’s progress, host lively monthly compost challenges, put on some fun educational events, and celebrate all those little “aha!” moments when you realize you’ve made almost no trash all week.

If you’re interested in participating as a building or sponsoring monthly prizes, we’d love to hear from you—email us at compost@livablebuckhead.org. Let’s turn Buckhead’s scraps into soil and make this challenge one for the record books!