Celebrate International Compost Awareness Week With Us!

May 6-12th is International Compost Awareness Week, and we are in a celebrating mood because of it! The best way to celebrate is to get your business started with GreenRU!

GreenRU is simple and easy to start, just contact us at 855-RU-VERDE and we can get the process started! We offer full services, from carts and bins to signage, promotional materials, training. You name it and we can help you with it!

With service this easy, we like to toot our horn a little bit! Our customers have done some pretty amazing things with our services, and have helped us to divert over 1,800 tons of organics from the landfill in just 2012! Imagine how much more of an impact we can make with your help.

How To Find Quality Compost

Maybe you don't compost. Maybe your work does, maybe your neighbor does. Either way, all you know is that you need some for your tomato plant this year. Where do you go?

The U.S. Composting Council is answering that question! This year they rolled out their new site Buy-Compost.com. It is a complete guide to finding a compost provider near you, so you can have locally made, U.S. Composting Council approved compost!

Not only does this site include a map with the locations of compost sites, it also has some helpful tips and tricks, regardless of the scale of your compost use.  We love the Compost/Mulch Calculator, because often times it is all too easy to not know how much you will use for your garden. This calculator gets rid of the guessing game!

Have you looked around on the site yet? What's your favorite feature? Let us know in the comments! 

Feature: 3 Minutes To Your Best Garden Yet

Today we're featuring a helpful video guide- 3 minutes to your best garden yet. These videos, put together by Ben Gould, shows you a few different tips to helping your garden be better than ever.

We especially like the last one about how to properly add compost to your garden. We recommend all of you add compost to your garden for larger, more nutrient rich plants.

Which segment is your favorite? Did you learn something? What's your biggest takeaway? Share in our comments!



Read the full article here.

Featured: 10 Things You Can Recycle Through the Mail

We're always looking for new ways to recycle, so we love articles like this. They make recycling as easy as stopping by the post office!

If you have a program locally that takes these items that's great, and we encourage you to use them for your recycling. However, if you're like many people you don't have a place to go for batteries, electronics, light bulbs and many other odd or chemical recycling options.

This is where these mail in programs are extremely useful. They can take products that you would otherwise send to the landfill and that could be potentially very dangerous there. These programs make sure that anyone can recycle products, no matter what services are available locally.

Read the full article here. Let us know what you think! Would you use these programs?

Composting in Higher Education in Iowa

As an early adopter of composting in the Midwest, we've had the pleasure of working with many higher education institutions. We think that this work provides many opportunities for both the schools and the students who experience the composting process. Here are the lessons we love about composting in Higher Education

Composting is Easy
It's a common misconception that composting is hard, that it's time consuming, that it won't work because of these reasons. One thing we love about implementing our program is that students and dining management learn just how easy composting can be. It's simply adding another bin to the mix, and many colleges find that most of their waste can go in the compost bin, especially in cafeterias.

Composting Makes a Difference
Before implementing a composting process, it's often hard to visualize just how much waste shouldn't be going to a landfill. Often times there are students working in these dining halls who see, next to management, just how much of an impact composting can have on the waste stream. Seeing the pure volume of the organic waste will open their eyes to the benefits of composting, especially if they know the consequences of landfilling organics.

Everyone Should Be Doing It
Higher Education is one segment that is the most excited about not only pre-consumer waste, but also post-consumer. They bring it to the students as a learning experience and it will change how the students handle their waste, whether they realize it or not.

Do you want composting in your campus dining hall? Contacting your Dining Services Director and encourage them to contact us, we'd be happy to help!

Must-Haves to Start Your Garden This Year

We recognize that a lot of our readers come from varied planting background, therefore, for today's blog post we've put together a list of the top must-have tools to start your own garden this year!

Image found here

Gardening Gloves

Love it or hate it, gardening can be rough on your hands. Between thorns, blisters, and other hazards, you'll be happy you picked up a sturdy pair of gloves!

Image found here

Trowel

Don't let the size of this tool fool you- it's extremely useful! Your trowel will help you break up dirt and dig holes for planting. We recommend a comfortable grip- it will make it much easier to use!

Image found here

Hand Cultivator

For a starter garden you won't need anything bigger than this, but it will be a wonder tool for you. This tool helps you to break up the ground when first planting seeds, but it also helps you with your weeding when you're further into the process. 

Image found here

Pruners

When it comes to caring for your garden, pruners will be a necessity. Trimming away old foliage, shaping of plants, and deadheading all keep your plant healthy and in good condition.

These are just a couple of many tools that could have made our list. Do you have others that should be added? Tell us in the comments!

Don't forget that the most important thing for a healthy garden is healthy soil. For healthy soil we recommend adding compost! Let us know if you're in need of some compost and we'll put you in contact with one of our composting facilities.

Featured Editorial

Last week we posted an editorial to our social media channels, but we wanted to feature it on this blog because we really want to emphasize how important writing editorials like this truly is.

Read the editorial here.

Scott Koepke, who wrote the editorial, brings up at the end that his students can grasp the concept he's trying to get across. When it's that simple, why isn't everyone doing it? In the end the switch is a very simple process, even more so with companies like ours, who provide businesses with bins and totes, pickup services, and educational training.

Our company works with hospitals, universities, grocery stores, restaurants and many other generators across the state of Iowa. We know that our customers can do it, but more importantly we know that many other businesses can do it as well.

Consider this our call to action: If you know a business owner that isn't composting, challenge them to do so. We provide a complimentary waste audit, so they can see the true impact that their waste stream has. We'll continue our work to turn organics towards beneficial reuse in compost.

Feature: Upcycled Garden Spring 2013

Here at GreenRU we read a variety of blogs about gardening and green living. We loved this post from Friday of last week about creating a chic and upcycled look for your garden this year!

These ideas aren't new, but we love the traction they're getting with social media, especially Pinterest. These upcycled items all look like you could have purchased them from a high end store, but they're just made with something that may have been considered junk.

The idea of giving objects new life through new purpose is great for the green movement, and we hope to see it continue. After all, what is compost if not new life for soil from the old life that grew from it.

Have you seen any other great upcycling posts lately? Share them in our comments! We'd love to check them out.

Our Favorite Gardening Pins

We love garden planning, but we especially love the ability to stow away great ideas year round with Pinterest. We've been pinning for a little while now an have a fair amount of pins, especially on our "Love Your Garden" board. Here is a list of our favorites so far!

See this Pin Here

Everyone needs a little gardening inspiration every now and then. With this post we hoped to inspire every gardener to keep it up!

See this Pin Here

This pin went over how to save your fresh herbs for later use. It's great for preparing for winter time, when fresh grown is so much harder to accomplish.

See this Pin Here

We're a fan of all types of gardens, so is it any surprise that we loved this vertical garden, conveniently located next to the stove?

See this Pin Here

This pin was a fun idea during the warmer months. To be honest, we were surprised how quickly this pin got popular! It is a great how-to to bring beautiful butterflies into your garden!

See this Pin Here

We love the idea of getting your children involved in the gardening process. While that may not be happening until the spring, this Biosphere is a great way to get them excited for it!

See this Pin Here

While this may not look like much, it's actually a guide to a winter to spring bulb project, which is a great way to stay inspired during the cold months.

See this Pin Here

This pin was back during peak apple season. We love it's helpful hints for all of your apple eating!

See this Pin Here

This guide is great for buying local, but also if you're trying to grow these fruits and need to know when the peak seasons are!

See this Pin Here

These lovely flowers are gorgeous year round, however we were especially fond of them during the holiday season because they look like candy canes!

These are our favorite of our pins, do you have any favorite gardening pins? Which of these are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

Gardening for your Region

We've been doing a lot of gardening in our head lately. The cold weather just makes us plan the plants we will grow in the spring. This week we found a great website that can help you with your garden planning, BHG Gardening By Region.

This site is great, first you find out what region you're in, if you don't already know. Then you can find the best things to plant based on your region. They have numerous guides, all to help you plan that perfect garden!

We particularly liked their guide to the Top Roses for the Midwest. Which article was your favorite? Be sure to share in the comments. Don't forget- food waste makes a great soil amendment  and we can help your business to recycle your organics.

Featured Upcycling DIY

With Valentines closing it, now is rush time for gifts! If you want to make a homemade gift there isn't anything better than an upcycled gift. The one we picked to feature just requires a Vinyl Record and some cooking supplies, but the gift will definitely be one of a kind, a Vinyl Record Bowl!

Thrift shops are full of old vinyls, so stop by any and pick out a record with a significant title or, if you get lucky, with a song that is important to you. It's a great way to make a very personal gift without having to spend a ton of money. The finished project is a bowl that can be used for whatever the recipient wishes! Different sized records make different sized bowls, so take that into account when making yours!

Check out the DIY here! Happy gift making!

Garden chores for February

It's February, but everyone knows it's never too early to get things ready for the spring's garden! For this blog we have compiled our list of chores to get done this month for your perfect spring garden!

1) Finish ordering your seeds! It's hard to think about it, but with shipping time included you need to get finished ordering your seeds for this spring. Get those orders in so you can get started with the next chore!

2) Start appropriate seeds indoors. If you seed can get started early indoors hop on it! Late February/Early March is a great time to start those seedlings for transplant in the spring!

3) Prune Trees & Shrubs. Every plant needs a pre-spring trim, so now is a great time to get it done if you didn't get a chance to yet!

4) Beginning planning and getting things in order for your compost/fertilizer needs. Especially if you are planning on getting a specific brand remember how quickly they seem to go during busy season so if you start planning now you can get everything in order!

5) Finally just keep your houseplants in order! It can be easy to let them slip a little when planning for outdoor, but just don't forget about those ones!

With these tips it will be easy to get prepared for the Spring planting season!

U.S. Composting Council Round-Up

Well, as we said in our last post, we spend last week in Orlando, Florida for the U.S. Composting Council Conference. We heard all sorts of interesting things from all areas of the industry and it was a great experience to learn more about everyone working with composting!

Maybe you didn't go to the conference, but there have been a lot of interesting articles that were published leading up to and following it, by complete coincidence. Have you read anything interesting about composting last week or this week? Share the link in the comments! We'd love to read what you thought was interesting!

We read this article about composting to provide fertilizer for rooftop gardens and we were definitely interested! Check it out: http://earth911.com/news/2013/02/04/nyc-rooftop-compost/

Reuse DIY

Today we're sharing a very helpful reuse DIYs that we found. This great article shares 50 new uses for old things. It's a great guide to finding brand new uses for thing that may be sitting around your house. Check it out here.

Our favorites from the article are:

Toilet Paper Hair Accessory holder

Matchbox as a mini sewing kit

Rubberbands to secure clothing on hangers

Old Mailing labels as return labels for books, movies, ect.

Old tissue boxes for plastic bags

There are a lot of other great ideas in there! Which are your favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Food Waste & Why Composting Helps

In America we waste 40% of our food. Food waste and other organics can be put to beneficial reuse through composting, but realizing the number is that huge is a wake up call. Check out this data:

Infographic from Sustainable America

Now, it's clear that as a nation we're over purchasing food, but a lot of this waste come from the industrial side of things, and often times their food is thrown out because of regulatory reasons. Going to the landfill means more methane emissions and that's bad news for our ozone layer!

Composting can help by taking these food scraps and other organics and helping the natural process of reuse- the products naturally break down and can be used to help soil to produce more food. This may seem like a simple idea and a natural route to take, but not everyone realizes it.

As a company that deals with organics from institutional settings, it's clear to us how large the impact is of just one hospital, school, university, grocery store, or restaurant switching and diverting their organics. It can equal to tons of material a year diverted from the landfill to beneficial reuse.

If you have questions or want to know more about what we do be sure to comment, but do you compost at home? Do you notice how much goes into the heap with just your family? Let us know!

GreenRU & Hy-Vee

We're not a big fan of bragging, so we'll let other people do it for us. We do some great work at two Hy-Vee locations, and that work was recently featured on the Iowa Grocery Industry Association newsletter!

Here's just a taste of the article:

"We started [diversion with GreenRU] because it was the right thing to do," says Max Dains, South Ottumwa Hy-Vee store director. "The departments have really gotten into it and are doing more than we asked of them. Everyone understands it's what should be done and what needs to be done."

Wow! Want to read more? You can! Check it out here.

So, what exactly does GreenRU do?

Our services are actually pretty easy to understand, however watching a video might be a little easier than reading an explanation. Check out the video below to understand how our process works!

Feel free to comment with any questions you may have! We're more than happy to help!

GreenRU: A short introduction

GreenRU is a "zero waste" recycler of organics and food scraps headquarted in Des Moines, Iowa and servicing the entire state. We offer complete recycling services and can provide cars and/or bins, training, signage, and a complete selection of compostable dinnerware, trash liners, and flatware. We're excited to be starting a blog to take about composting and everything related to it, whether it's tips for your garden or general sustainability information!