Bozeman plans city-run organics collection; program to launch this spring

Nick Ross, Bozeman’s director of transportation and engineering, told the Sustainability Advisory Board that the city will launch a year-round solid-waste organics management program this spring that offers weekly curbside organics pickup to residential customers. “We’ll be offering a weekly service, so weekly collections, using either a 35 or a 95 gallon tote,” Ross said, and the city will partner with a local processor, Happy Trash Can, for processing and marketing the finished compost.

Nut graf: The city plans to use federal grant money to buy capital equipment and marketing, operate the service for a two-year grant reporting period and then continue the program if customers sign up. City staff said the program aims to cut landfill tonnage and the greenhouse-gas impacts of food and yard waste while providing residents a paid, year-round alternative to the seasonal yard-waste pickup now provided.

Ross told board members the program was launched by a City Commission directive in 2022 and shaped by a solid-waste rate study performed in 2023. He said the city secured an EPA solid-waste…