Last month, Reading Terminal Market partnered with Main Line pickup service, Mother Compost, on a new pilot program that has already started to pay dividends, writes Kristin Hunt for PhillyVoice.

With just over a month of launching the program, Reading Terminal Market has already returned 30 tons of fruit peels, eggshells, and coffee grounds to the dirt.

Ten of the market’s 76 merchants are participating in the pilot. The vendors enrolled are Beiler’s Bakery; Iovine Brothers Produce; Old City Coffee; John Yi Fish Market; Glick’s Rib Shack; LUHV Vegan Deli; Lancaster County Dairy; OK Produce; Four Seasons Juice Bar; and By George Pizza, Pasta and Cheesesteaks.

However, public relations rep London Faust noted that plans are in place to include more merchants if the program “continues to be successful.”

The merchants store compostable items in containers in their stalls, which are then emptied into the market’s 64-gallon compost bins.

From there, Mother Compost collects scraps from the trash room each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and ferries them to Linvilla Orchards where they are composted by Drexel Hill-based Kitchen Harvest. 

Annie Allman, CEO and general manager of the Reading Terminal Market Corporation, wrote in a statement that she is looking forward to “growing this program to include even more once the pilot is complete.”

Read more about Reading Terminal Market’s new composting pilot program in PhillyVoice.

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