Reporting for this story was supported by the Climate Equity Reporting Project at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
In the first few years after Monique Figueiredo founded Compostable LA in 2019, it grew rapidly. The small business picked up food scraps from homes, event spaces, and businesses — ranging from Walmart to Nike — and delivered it to urban farms and community gardens where it was made into high-quality compost. It wasn’t long before the venture had more than 1,000 customers throughout the city of Los Angeles.
Figueiredo’s business diverted food waste from landfills while educating young people, corporations, and consumers about the value of composting and providing free compost to more than a dozen urban farms and gardens that feed people in some of the city’s most marginalized communities.
Then, in 2022, cities around California began implementing SB 1383, a law that requires them to contract with large waste hauling companies to pick up food scraps at the curb, along with garbage and recycl... Read more
