We Steer Food away from the Trash and Back into the Earth
We collect food waste from homes, apartments, and businesses to conserve landfill space and reduce potent climate warming emissions.
So far, we’ve helped businesses and residents divert millions of pounds of food waste from landfills, transforming it into valuable compost instead.
Improving Our Environmental Future with Sustainable Food Waste Solutions
The food waste that gets sent to landfills is a bigger problem than many people realize. As it breaks down in landfills, it releases methane–a major contributor to harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
However, when food waste is separated and allowed to break down on its own, it turns into compost, which is a natural fertilizer.
All of us are already generating food waste, at home and at work. By separating food waste into its own collection bins, we help make the garbage that does wind up in landfills more eco friendly, as well as help create a valuable resource as compost, one we can collectively dedicate to the highest and best uses.
At Moonshot Compost, we're helping people change their way of thinking about food waste, to learn to see excess food not as trash, but as a nutrient-rich resource to be returned to the soil. We are out to change people’s perceptions about composting and teach them how to incorporate it into their daily routine.
Meet Moonshot Founders Chris and Joe
Chris Wood and Joe Villa co-founded Moonshot Compost in July 2020. It had become clear to them that their native Houston had not yet adequately stepped up to the task of diverting its citizens’ and businesses’ food waste away from landfills. They started Moonshot with the hopes of making a real difference to the city’s environmental future.
Chris Wood
Chris Wood worked for more than 15 years as a corporate attorney. A lifelong Houstonian, he attended UVA for undergrad and UT Austin for law school. He and his wife Debbie Yee share two daughters.
Joe Villa
Joe Villa worked for more than 15 years for a leading international logistics company. A lifelong Texan, he has a degree in business from UT Pan American. He and his wife Linda Yee share one son.
How it started
Just like many of us, Chris and Joe were faced with a personal decision: “Where do I put this trash?” For most of us, we confront this dilemma dozens of times each day and address it thoughtlessly as we were taught when we were young. For some, that means a trash can. For others, it means differentiating between two receptacles: trash or recycling.
What Is a “Moonshot?”
The term “moonshot” originated in the 1960s, when President Kennedy laid out a challenge to the nation (Sept. 12, 1962, in Houston) to send Americans to the moon. It was a task that seemed gargantuan at the time, and yet America rose to the occasion, and before the end of the decade we had put a man on the moon.
We see the environmental challenges facing our world as our moonshot. For us, a moonshot is a way of thinking. It’s an approach to meeting complex problems head on, not turning away from something because it is difficult.
We look at the environmental impact of human behaviors and ask, “What are some small changes we can all make that will have a large impact?”
Educating and Innovating
Developing community-based solutions is the best way to lead climate action at a large scale. We believe that together, as residents and businesses in communities, we can come up with innovative solutions to divert food waste from landfills
One of our aims is to educate and inspire others through our diversion reporting.
Our proprietary Diversion Dashboard tracks composting totals by weight of food collected and converts these numbers to three different climate equivalents, including trees planted and miles not driven. This is a simple way to demonstrate how composting efforts directly contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Residential customers can use the Dashboard to track their individual and communty’s contributions, and compare those to the contributions of other nearby neighborhoods. It’s also easy to share with friends on social media, and a fun way to connect with and motivate people to compost.
Sustainability Is Our Business
They say to practice what you preach. At Moonshot, we truly believe in the power of sustainability to impact our communities and leave the planet better than we found it. That’s why we implement sustainability practices in every area we can:
Our offices implement 100% renewable electricity.
We use E-transit vehicles for our collections.
Our drivers utilize route optimization software to ensure that each collection run travels the fewest miles possible.
Twice during the year, we offer our customers the opportunity to receive compost they’ve earned from their food waste collections, that they can use in their own gardening projects. If they choose not to receive it, the compost is donated to a local community garden.
Over the last few years, Moonshot has donated hundreds of pounds of compost to community gardens.
Food waste in landfills is a growing problem, but we believe that composting is a simple yet elegant solution. Small changes in our individual lives like food waste collection can make a huge impact collectively.
We invite your business to join the Moonshot community and start making your part of the change today.
