Fall has officially arrived. Your and your neighbor's yards are accumulating various types of debris as plants prepare for winter dormancy. Cleaning up your lawn for fall and winter is a big task, and once you’ve got everything piled up, how do you get rid of this nutrient-rich debris? The next step is more important than you think.

As we wrap up another fabulous summer, we’re excited to share the results of our composting collection at local events. It’s been a season of learning, growth, and heaps of success—quite literally! Here’s a look at how our composting efforts have made a difference.

Last year, with the help of our community, we were able to divert 74% of the waste created by the Western Montana Fair. An astounding 64% was diverted to compost, and 10% was diverted to recycling. With record attendance surpassing 100,000 people, this was a major environmental accomplishment.

A week away from the 2024 Western Montana Fair, we need help to beat last year's record! Your participation and enthusiasm for sustainability is essential success.

The Missoula Marathon is right around the corner. It takes a community to put on such a great event; and one to keep it sustainable.

Collecting food waste for composting can be… well, pretty messy. Here are some tips to keep your bin clean.

How we meet the challenge of sustainable development now will determine our future. Strong city planning and support from everyone in our community will be essential in managing these challenges effectively.

Missoula Gives is a 26-hour online celebration of our community. It connects generous Missoulians with the causes they care about. It is a day to celebrate the role local nonprofits play in making our community great.

Denis Hayes, Earth Day founder, made it clear that Earth Day was a beginning: "If the environment is a fad, it's going to be our last fad...We are building a movement, a movement with a broad base, a movement which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a movement that values people more than technology, people more than political boundaries, people more than profit."

Recycling emphasizes the importance of minimizing waste and reusing resources, replenishing speaks to restoring what's been depleted, and regrowth is the result of these efforts. “Spring" ties it all together. It's a season to remind us why we spend all year composting, a time when we get to spread our newly transformed resources back into the soil to fuel new life.

We have created a Facebook group, “Missoula's Compost Q's & A's”. The vision of this group is to help our community navigate composting in Missoula.

Easter is a time to celebrate life. Material that fell during winter serves as food and shelter for new growth. Birds serenade new sprouts as they emerge from the thawing earth. Eggs have long been a symbol of fertility and new life. Today, perhaps we have lost the celebration of life by shrink wrapping eggs in tombs of plastic, buying cheap single use containers every year to store candy, and decorating with plastic fake grass. Nothing like celebrating Spring by drowning it in Polyethylene. There has to be a better way.

March's full moon can be called the “Worm Moon”. It will occur March 25th, 2024.

It’s time to start planting, fertilizing, and preparing lawns and gardens for a prosperous season of growth. Adding compost in spring is a wonderful way to nourish your plants and enrich the soil after a long winter.

“Seventy five percent of the world's flowering plants and 35% of food crops rely on animal pollinators to reproduce”. Unfortunately, habitat loss is a major threat to native pollinators. Learn how to keep them safe.

Composting is a great way to reciprocate love to our earth and soils.

Our growth means Missoula will develop effective waste management solutions that are reliable and affordable. We focus on Missoula’s future by supporting residents and local businesses with curbside composting services.

Let's Connect Compost this year. Chat about benefits and barriers to composting among friends and family. Help Missoula develop composting solutions that work for you at home and around our community.

After your Christmas tree has fulfilled its holiday duty, don’t disgrace it by sending it to the landfill; help your tree find its way back home through composting.

It’s the time of year when we wrap our gifts to the nines. It’s hard to imagine a gift without concealing it in lavish paper and shimmery accents. While ribbons, bows, and festive wrapping paper make for a beautiful gift, the waste they produce is overwhelming. The good news: There are lots of alternatives!

We generate three times as much food waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as we do the rest of the year. Working on limiting the food we purchase and cook, eating leftovers, and composting as many scraps as possible can limit waste during the holiday season.