Our Story
Dirty Hands, Clean Soul: Composting food waste lowers greenhouse gas emissions and creates healthy soil. We want to make it easy for all Philadelphians.
Owners Tim Bennett and Jennifer Mastalerz
Tim Bennett , 2009
Starting Small
In 2009, Tim Bennett wanted to compost. Unfortunately, he was living in a second-story South Philly apartment and wasn’t sure how to get started. After talking with some friends at dinner about it, he realized he wasn’t alone. It was a light bulb moment. He put $100 in a bank account and Bennett Compost was born. Since then our team and process have continued to evolve.
Currently, Bennett Compost picks up from over 6,000 households and businesses every week, keeping over 125 tons of material out of the landfill every month. In 2018, Jennifer Mastalerz joined Bennett Compost as an owner of the business. An architect by training, Jen had been composting since 2010. She first got her hands dirty composting with Philly Compost and then went on to start her own bike-powered composting business in Fishtown.
Our Mission
Our mission is simple: to make composting easy for all Philadelphians. And to do it in a way that respects our employees, strengthens our community and makes Philadelphia a better place.
Impact
Small business, big impact. Last year alone we kept over 4,000,000 lbs of food waste out of landfills. logged 1000s of bicycle miles, offset over 1200 tons of carbon dioxide, and provide full-time living wage employment with benefits to 25 Philadelphians. And we are just getting started.
Initiatives
We believe that our impact isn't just measured in statistics. It’s also the many different initiatives we work on that connect to our work with food waste composting. Whether it's working with the City of Philadelphia to develop innovative municipal models for managing food waste, providing a soft landing for recently incarcerated Philadelphians, developing neighborhood-level partnerships with trusted community groups, working with Philadelphia schools to provide education and internship opportunities around composting or helping Philadelphia gardeners and farms grow healthy food in urban environments, our work spans volumes. Click below to learn more about some of these initiatives.
Community Partnerships
Building compost, building community–None of our outside initiatives are possible without a robust network of community partners. Over the years, we’ve been lucky to collaborate with so many great folks on so many great projects. Check out some of the great organizations and individuals in our circle.