Mill customers have the option to send their Food Grounds to us whenever their bin gets full, in order to keep their kitchen scraps in the food system and out of the landfill. Prepaid return boxes, shipping fees, and scheduled pickups are all included in the Mill Plan.
Based on our preliminary study, you can avoid about a half-ton of greenhouse gas emissions per year with a Mill Plan. Instead of filling the air with methane, your kitchen scraps are turned into food for chickens, going right back into the food system.
Shipping
We are partnering with USPS to ship Food Grounds because they’re already visiting almost every house, every day. And since Mill households will, on average, send just one box of Food Grounds every few weeks, USPS vehicles will have the capacity to manage the load.
With this approach, every box of Food Grounds could be transported 15,000-20,000 miles (close to a trip around the world) before it could negate the benefits of keeping food out of landfills and avoiding methane emissions.
Packaging
For the Food Grounds packaging, we use a recyclable LDPE plastic slide-lock liner in a 100% recyclable cardboard box. Since we receive every box of Food Grounds at our feed facility, we’re able to inspect and sort the boxes for reusability and recycle the bags. We’ve partnered with a recycling facility to convert all of our liners into value added products, for example parking curb stops!
We’re also actively exploring other sustainable packaging options. If you have any suggestions, please send them to us at mill.com/contact.
To learn more about the climate impact of an annual Mill Plan, please visit mill.com/LCA