Kate Jaceldo grew up on a ranch in South Texas, so she’s always been aware of where our food comes from and what goes into it. Now, she and her mom are working to close the food cycle by tackling the other end of that process: food waste. The idea for their curbside composting business, Compost Queens, was planted after her mom watched a documentary about a woman her age who was doing the same thing in Brooklyn. “She thought like, if this lady can do it, I can do it!” Kate says.
At the time, Kate was a social worker in the public school system, feeling burnt out and looking for a career change. She jumped at the opportunity to start something new that would also benefit the environment and the community. “So we just kinda dove in, neither one of us have any kind of business degree or anything. We just learned along the way.”
One of their take-aways has been that education is the key to convincing people to compost. “Nobody knows why they should compost, nobody knows how to do it without disrupting their life, and changing human behavior is difficult,” she explains.
So, why should you compost? “So many reasons!” she shares excitedly. “Food waste, when it goes to the landfill, turns into methane, which is really really bad for the environment. And food waste makes up about a quarter of our landfills in this country right now.”
By composting, you sequester carbon from the atmosphere, which helps mitigate climate change. At the same time, you’re creating soil that better retains moisture and keeps plants healthy so that you don’t have to use pesticides. “It’s just taking something that’s helping destroy the earth that can totally be rebuilding it. It’s kind of a no brainer,” she says.
But she understands that there are still barriers to composting for a lot of people, whether it’s a lack of space or time or energy. That’s why the work that Compost Queens does is so important.
“You literally throw your food waste in a bucket, close the lid, sprinkle some other stuff in so it’s not super nasty, and then just put it out on your curb. And we switch it out and do the dirty work.”
As part of their mission to make composting more accessible and community-oriented, Compost Queens has established community drop-off spots at both EcoCentro and The Impact Guild. These spots have helped them to expand their services to those who live outside of their pick-up range and allowed them to create an even more affordable composting option for community members.
The San Antonio community is especially important to Kate, who has watched the city grow and develop over the past 30 years. On working at the intersection of the food, urban agriculture, nonprofit, and startup communities, she says, “It’s exciting for me to be in the middle of it all. I get to go to farms and food events and all kinds of stuff.”
She sees The Impact Guild as being an important force for bringing communities together in San Antonio as well. Her background in social work trained her to pay attention to how systems work together. “San Antonio has always been in these silos. There’s cool stuff happening, but if you’re not on the same side of town or not in the same network, people don’t know about it,” she says. “I think it’s places like The Impact Guild that break down the silos and are bringing different people to the table to share.”