Innovation

Rust Belt Riders clients are restaurants and companies that host food service organizations on site. The reason for this is simple, these companies produce the most amounts of compostable waste. By providing specialty bins for the compostable material, RBR can come pick up the food waste easily during regularly scheduled collections. After collecting the waste, RBR brings it to one of their composting locations and composts it. After composting the material, RBR packages and sells it to community members who are in need of a soil with living components to facilitate the growth of plants. Here, they aim to serve anyone who is looking to grow plants and understands the value of using a high-quality compost. Although selling the compost is part of the core operation, the key innovation is the pickup of compostable materials from Rust Belt Riders’ clients.

Rust Belt Riders envision a world without waste. Although it may sound like a lofty goal, they have made a significant impact by diverting food waste from landfills. Their value proposition to their clients is simple: be better by reducing waste. Through their innovative model, RBR empowers their clients to reduce their environmental impact easily and effectively. Although their innovation is currently limited to Northeast Ohio, RBR hopes to expand to other states to increase the scope and impact of their innovation.

Inspiration

Daniel and Michael, the co-founders of Rust Belt Riders, have felt the need to contribute to society since high school, where they volunteered in programs that dealt with hunger, homelessness, and poverty. They maintained their volunteer work throughout college, while aiming to learn "big city" lessons that they could bring back to their hometown of Cleveland.

After moving back to Cleveland, Daniel and Michael first started a community garden. While working in the food service industry, they realized how difficult it was to grow herbs and vegetables with soil that doesn’t contain living microbes, and therefore sought to learn about compost and how compostable soil is created. Additionally, they noticed the increasing trends of farm-to-table food, but with societal impact in mind, wondered where does food go after the table. Daniel stated that, “If people care where food comes from they should equally care where it goes.” From here, they began to pursue how they could make the process cyclical and change the model from just "farm to table" to "farm to table and table to farm."

After some time, Daniel and Michael realized how they could close this loop through a compost service, and reduce waste. They hopped on their bikes, because at the time they didn’t own vehicles, and began riding around to companies collecting their waste and composting it for their community garden.

Overall impact

Rust Belt Riders’ innovation impacts numerous stakeholders. First, they help their clients, other businesses, by helping them create and share a better story through the reduction of waste they divert from landfills. This allows their clients to differentiate through sustainability and helps them to recruit and retain better talent by giving employees and the business a higher purpose. Furthermore, the innovation allows RBR’s clients to do this with minimal effort. All the employees have to do is put their compostable waste into the designated compost bins and RBR will pick up the material in their vans. This ensures that their clients can be more sustainable without having to completely change their business models.

Additionally, RBR’s innovation impacts the entire region that they operate in. By reducing the amount of waste that goes into landfills, RBR helps reduce harmful greenhouse gases. The innovation also gives the general population access to high-quality compost, allowing for a cyclical farm to table to farm system that empowers stakeholders to reduce their overall environmental impact.

Business benefit

Rust Belt Riders began their journey into helping companies compost at the perfect time. Right before they had their idea, a local composting company discontinued their service to the region. Daniel and Michael took advantage of an opportunity that would provide immeasurable impact to the Northeast Ohio community and reopen a market that had been closed. One article later in the Plain Dealer, and they were already seeing so much success, that they were having to turn away customers. Thanks to a not-so-lucky accident on the bikes, RBR decided to move their business model to vans, and their current form of their innovation took off.

Put simply, this reimagined innovation made the business possible for RBR and Cleveland. Rust Belt Riders’ core business model revolves around this innovation of compost pickup. That being said, there certainly are more specifics regarding how the innovation benefits the business. By leveraging a subscription model, the innovation ensures that the business generates consistent revenue, providing RBR with the ability to hire more people passionate about sustainability in the Cleveland area. Further, the innovation gives Rust Belt Riders’ employees a greater purpose, helping RBR to retain talent and keep morale high.

Additionally, the innovation has allowed RBR to experience growth. Because the innovation has such great societal impact, it has enabled RBR to grow throughout the region as more clients realize the benefit from the service. It’s a win-win for the companies and the people in the Cleveland area. Daniel mentioned, “At the end of the day, I’m always learning and that’s pretty cool.” It’s apparent that the innovation has allowed RBR to sustainably grow and learn about new revenue generation models, which they are hopeful to implement soon.

Social and environmental benefit

The composting service that Rust Belt Riders provides not only impacts the environment, but the people of Cleveland and the surrounding communities. Cuyahoga County has seen the greatest impact from the business so far, and hopefully other areas of Ohio may begin to benefit soon. As of right now, they are able to pick up over 40,000 pounds of compostable waste each week!

After seeing this number, it’s obvious that the composting service RBR provides reduces landfill waste around Northeast Ohio, but Daniel and his team have been making some behind-the-scenes decisions to make their business even more informative and sustainable. In order to truly understand their footprint, RBR has begun tracking their water and gas usage and reports these numbers out to their clients. They also made a business decision to begin using compost bags that cost $1 a piece instead of $0.03 to further positively impact the environment, something that may not make financial sense at first, but makes an impact on the Cleveland community.

As far as society is concerned, Rust Belt Riders also benefits the consumers who are purchasing the soil product they produce and the communities who use the soil for their community gardens. This carbon negative product helps these people grow nutrient-rich food for themselves and their families. And last but not least, this innovation benefits the organizations that are partnered with RBR. Companies now have the ability to make a difference and decrease their environmental footprint, while providing purpose for their employees who value this.

Interview

Daniel Brown, Co-Founder