Ready, Set... Compost!

The National Housing Trust has cracked code on successful composting at our affordable multifamily housing communities. NHT's property, Monseñor Romero, is the first affordable multifamily housing in the District of Columbia to implement a building-wide composting program. The incentive-based approach - a little friendly competition between the floors -has the tenants excited to compost.

NHT-E introduced a composting competition to the residents at Monseñor Romero. Each of the residents living in the building's five floors was assigned a compost bin and instructed to compost as much as possible for the next 10 weeks. Each Monday throughout the competition, the bins are weighed. The floor with the heaviest bin is declared the victor for the week. To the victor go the spoils; a cash prize is delivered to each apartment on the winning floor.

The program has met with great success thus far. In its fourth week of intense completion, the residents have composted just shy of 350 pounds of waste that would have otherwise gone into a landfill. The total compost produced each week has steadily increased, giving great hope that this incentive-based approach will be a winner. 

While the competition is fun for the residents, the overarching goal of the contest is to get residents into the habit of composting. By composting trash instead of throwing it in the garbage, we are reducing the costs of waste removal and creating savings for additional resident service offerings. Over time these new habits will dramatically reduce the amount of waste entering the landfill. Less waste means less overall environmental impact for Monseñor Romero and NHT alike.