CINCINNATI-- OES in partnership with the Over-The-Rhine and College Hill Recreation Centers, is piloting a free food scrap drop-off program to help divert organics from the landfill. Residents can drop off their vegetative food scraps every:

Monday from 12pm-8pm at the Over-The-Rhine Recreation Center at 1715 Republic St (self-service drop-off)

Tuesday from 3pm-5pm at the College Hill Recreation Center at 5545 Belmont Avenue

Materials you can drop off are limited to:  

• Fruits  

• Vegetables  

• Grains (bread, rice, oats, etc.)  

• Coffee grounds and coffee filters

• Spices  

• House plant clippings and old house plant soil  

• Cut flowers (with no paint, ribbon, or other decoration)  

If you participate in the drop-off and register at MakeSoil as a soil supporter, you are eligible to receive a countertop food scrap collection container.

The food scraps get composted on site with a bioreactor composting system, ultimately for use within the garden at the Rec Center.   

OES, the Common Orchard Project, and the Community Composter Coordinator, have worked on installing Johnson-Su Bioreactors on many community garden and orchard sites within the City of Cincinnati. Johnson-Su Bioreactors are a passively aerated, no-turn composting system capable of composting up to one ton of material. These bioreactors are filled with a blend of wood chips and vegetative food scraps collected from Cincinnati restaurants and residents. This material is based on work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under agreement number NR213A750001C025.

The Johnson-Su composting system has been built, tested, and improved upon with the Walnut Hills gardens since 2020, with additional leadership from Gary Dangle and the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, and now we're working to expand bioreactors to community gardens and food waste drop off sites around Cincinnati.

For more information, email oes@cincinnati-oh.gov.