Chickens help Windsor-Essex's GreenerBins Farm grow, accelerating composting process 'like crazy'

A year and a half after a Windsor environmentalist launched his GreenerBins Composting Company, business is thriving and expanding — and now, it even involves a hen house full of chickens. 

Dane Fader formed the company in 2018 in an effort to address the lack of municipal organic waste collection in the Windsor-Essex area. He started collecting waste for 30 households, but now, that's expanded to more than 350 homes, schools and businesses in the region.  

"I am floored and honoured and grateful every day to get to do the work that I do," said Fader, the former University of Windsor environmental studies student.

The team itself has also grown from just Fader, to a group of eight.

The business offers weekly collection of organic waste where clients receive a bucket to fill up with their food waste. Then it's collected on a weekly basis, turned into compost, and finally returned to the community for use in personal gardens, community gardens and farmland.

New farm, new possibilities

The company recently moved from a commercial zoning space in Oldcastle, Ont. to a farm in Kingsville, Ont. and the newest twist on the operation involves dozens of chickens. 

"I have 88 chickens and they are all each the loves of my life. And then I have one rooster. His name is Frank," Fader said. 

The chickens play a significant role on the farm. They consume the organic waste, while also speeding up the composting process. 

"They're pulling out all of the things that are traditionally difficult to compost, things that are high in acidity, things that just basically need to be torn apart before they can really be effectively composted," said Fader.

"And the chickens just do all that as they dig and as they pack through with their beaks, they break down the material further and further which accelerates the composting process like crazy," he explained.

Building a greenhouse

The chickens are part of a larger, more ambitious vision Fader has for the farm and for his business. He's working on developing a farm that can exist off of the food waste coming in. 

In addition to the hens and rooster on the farm already, he'd like to get pigs and goats in the future, while also developing a crops field on the property. This is all in addition to the greenhouse that is currently in the process of being built. 

"So rather than just providing compost back to the community, we're actually going to be growing and producing our own food in the compost at the farm," he said. 

"We're gonna have lettuce and potatoes and carrots and farm fresh eggs, things like that, in addition to compost that can go back to the community."

He said he's not sure if that would be in the form of a delivery service back to the community, or it would be sold at farmers markets in the region.

Dreams for the future

Furthermore, he'd like to expand upon the partnerships that already exist between GreenerBins and local restaurants, such as John Max Sports Bar. Fader would love to grow food products for them using the compost created from their own organic waste. 

"If we're able to pick up food waste from restaurants, turn it into compost and then grow good food in that compost that could then be used at those restaurants again — that would just be the most exciting thing," said Fader.

"It's something that needs to be recycled and needs to be put back into the community where it's from."

He'd also like to partner with the University of Windsor to create learning opportunities for students to give them some hands-on experience at the farm.

"A lot of people maybe think I'm crazy, even some friends and relatives because I just play with food waste all day which is traditionally not very great," he says with a chuckle.

"But you know, I love the actual process of regenerating it from this ... something that could be considered waste into a very, very valuable product that can really help communities," he said.