This year, the University of Idaho’s Sustainability Center bought a bike trailer for MoCoPro— that stands for Moscow Coffee Compost Project (the University of Idaho is in Moscow, Idaho—who knew?). The program is run by 15 volunteers and works like this:

1. Pick up coffee grounds from 11 local coffee shops.
2. Transport the grounds to various composting sites around Moscow.
3. Compost them.

In just NINE WEEKS, this program has collected 3 TONS of coffee grounds, reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfills and making awesome enriched soil for the community! I love stories like this where young people find super simple/cheap solutions to environmental challenges.

Lots of people out there (like these folks) are working on how to make composting work on a large scale, and how to make it profitable. While that’s probably the best way to make a long-term, replicable solution, there’s no reason to wait around– there’s coffee grounds to collect and compost to be made!

Rumor has it that there will be a bike trailer workshop at the Ohio City Bike Co-Op pretty soon, so keep an eye out for that if you’re looking to make your own bike trailer (for compost-collecting or other purposes)!