Rust Belt Riders collect food waste in Cleveland and turn it into fertilizer
Part of the beauty I’ve found within the sustainability movement is accessibility,
and — at times — ease. A simple desire and direct action can make an enormous difference. Daniel Brown, CEO of Rust Belt Riders, understands this dynamic and acts upon it. Rust Belt Riders collect organic waste from restaurants in the Cleveland area and redistribute it to local farms to use as fertilizer, effectively recycling the food we don’t eat.
The farm-to-table movement was front and center during my childhood;
it very much still is in Trumansburg and the Finger Lakes Region, where I’m from. I remember picking raspberries, strawberries, peas, and flowers at Sweet Land Farm (sometimes under duress) while my mother collected the rest of our weekly farm share: kale, spinach, occasional celery or summer squash, cherry tomatoes — you get the point. There was always a wonderful variety of locally grown food that we’d pick, then eat together as a family. The CSA farm share exemplifies the farm-to-table movement and serves as a perfect way to both contribute to local farmers and reduce food waste; Daniel Brown’s Rust Belt Riders extends this concept even further.
Daniel attended St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland,
where he discovered “a lot of the issues that I’m still working on today. I found myself doing lots of service programs and things that I’m really passionate about — certain different social issues.”
Much of this centered on food and how our eating habits affect the environment. Like in my own household, Daniel’s family’s meals were a central part of their time together. Daniel talked to me about learning the, “lessons of the importance and power of food — you can learn about your cultural identity, histories of different peoples, the changing seasons, traditions, etc., and,
“I think that food is just a great universal vehicle. Food was something that was shared and was just always the focus of family life for me.”
Daniel Brown
This familial centrality surrounding food extended into his personal life;
he found himself more immersed in environmental and service initiatives as he continued his education. After high school at St. Ignatius, Daniel attended DePaul University in Chicago. At DePaul, Daniel’s “degree required a minor in community service study, allowing me to further sink my teeth into exploring different social and environmental issues that affect our immediate communities, regional communities, and global communities.”
There’s a clear correlation between the service Daniel delved into and the initiative he began: Understanding these societal “ecosystems” and the inequity therein leads to knowing how to address this inequity, and other issues as well. It’s a pure effort, all about repurposing food and benefiting the lives of everyone involved — be it restaurant owners, farmers, or local families donating their compost.
I was super excited to discover an initiative like this in Cleveland,
and was pleasantly met with an inspiring conversation when I spoke with Daniel, whose motives were as straightforward as wanting “to get involved in the urban agriculture movement that was taking root at the time.”
Rust Belt Riders’ beginnings may be my favorite part of this project: Along with his roommate, Michael Robinson, Daniel Brown,
“crowdfunded a couple hundred dollars from the community, bought a mountain bike and then welded a trailer to the back of it.”
– Daniel Brown
Daniel and Michael “literally were riding around Cleveland picking up food scraps from restaurants and cafes, hundreds of pounds at a time, and then taking that to community gardens and farm plots to use as compost.”
This is what I mean when I say there’s beauty in the accessibility of this movement:
All it took was an idea, modest funding, and some initiative to create an effective and sustainable business.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Daniel, who I enjoyed talking to and learning from:
“People assume that if you’re an environmentalist you have to drive a Tesla or at least a hybrid, or have solar panels on your house. I think that those are really limiting ways to think about how everyday activity is contributing towards climate change. Learning more about the environmental impact that our agriculture system has — and also, by extension, the quality of air, of water, the quality of our jobs and our health — is just as beneficial. For me, food became the one lever that if you move and improve it, you have a bunch of other side benefits. Hopefully we’re convincing other people of the same thing. So yes, you could drive a Tesla, and yes, you can install solar panels, but the vast majority of people maybe can’t afford those things. Everybody eats and everybody creates food waste; what you do with your waste matters a great deal and so we’re trying to continue to make people aware of that. Feed people, not landfills.”
-Daniel Brown
