Worried about global warming and climate change, eight-year-old Olivia Ryan convinced her school to start a compost program.
She spent her Christmas break working on a self-assigned project to convince her school of its benefits.
"I knew that my school was pretty big and it had a lot of students and a lot of classrooms so there would be lots of compost which can help reduce the greenhouse gases, and the more that can help reduce it, the slower climate change will come," said Ryan.
Now St. Angela Catholic Elementary School is enrolled with the Greener Bins program and each class collects food waste.
"We are so inspired by Olivia's leadership," says Greener Bins owner Dane Fader. "It is incredibly inspiring to see that she is so passionate about it and it really reaffirms that we're on the right track and we're doing the right stuff because people care and it's super important."
Greener Bins is a company based out of Kingsville started by Fader when he was in university. Now the company travels throughout Windsor and Essex County to collect food waste from households, restaurants, businesses and schools.
"We process it all on our farm, turn it into good compost and then we return that compost back to the community in community gardens, school gardens, small urban farms and backyards," said Fader.
Fader estimates the company has collected around 250,000 pounds of food waste from his customers since the company started in June 2018.
