Compost Baladi SAL is a Lebanese Social Enterprise specialized in biowaste management at different scales. Compost Baladi’s products resort to low tech, low cost and locally manufactured waste management solutions; aligning with a sustainable circular economy approach. Among the different lines of services that they provide, they also raise awareness on agricultural topics and on the importance of sorting at source and composting to citizens, students, farmers and underprivileged communities. To date, Compost Baladi has empowered and achieved several national success stories in waste management, waste valorization and wastewater treatment at different scales.

DID YOU KNOW?

Compost Baladi started as a blog in 2015, following the start of the national waste management crisis. Its creators used the blog to raise awareness and incentivize people on composting. Seeing the large interest from people, Compost Baladi was thus established as a social enterprise in 2017.

WHAT’S THE INNOVATION?

Compost Collect is a kit that modifies existing dumpsters into smart bins for biowaste. The solution offers waste management collectors the ability to retain the waste on-site for extended periods of time and reduce some of its volume with a minimal use of energy. It improves the quality of sorting with an enhanced user experience through an app, digital locking system and selective access. The system also allows for integrating fill level sensors and route optimization software.

WHAT’S THE STORY BEHIND THE INNOVATION?

Compost Baladi has already manufactured and put on the market an in-vessel composter that empowers users living in a rural or urban area to manage their organic waste at home and gain compost out of it. Therefore, having worked on similar innovations targeting organic waste management on a household level like the EarthCube, they wanted to take it to a bigger scale and serve the whole community; especially the ones who couldn’t or didn’t want to purchase a whole EarthCube.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

The compost collect innovation tackles one of the biggest challenges in waste management today: the high transportation cost of organic waste. There is a double financial benefit for the compost collect: saving massively on operations cost, and valorizing the end-product at the same time.

WHO IS BENIFITTING?

Through the compost collect kit, waste management operators are able to reduce up to 30% of the volume at the source and reduce the collection frequency down to 1-3 times per months. Through the IoT base servicing, operators can further reduce collection frequency by emptying bins only when full.

Selective access and improved user interaction will allow better sorting compliance and identify users that require further awareness. As a result, material collected will have less impurities and is suitable for the disposal or valorization at composting facility, while evading landfill taxes, in addition to reducing miles scrabbled to disposal sites. As a result, through compost collect, waste management operators can begin integrating source separation of organics gradually to interested users without the risk of contamination from non-informed disposers. For every ton collected with compost collect the waste management operator can save 30 to 50% on collection cost and disposal.