Fulfilling requirements

When California legislation began requiring jurisdictions to divert organics from landfills and procure and distribute large quantities of compost and mulch, Agromin saw an opportunity.

The California-based organics recycler produces and supplies eco-friendly soil products. Agromin quickly launched an online portal where cities could order compost and mulch and track their distribution to residents, nonprofits and farms.

The company conceived and developed the website, CaliforniaCompost.net, as being “like an Amazon for compost,” Agromin CEO Bill Camarillo says. “It’s a portal that the cities can use to procure their compost.”

On the distribution side, Agromin created a coupon program that allows partnering cities to provide coupon codes for residents to order free compost or mulch.

A resident can visit the company’s e-commerce site, shop.agromin.com, and type in his or her ZIP code to order the complimentary compost.

As a private company, Agromin makes money by receiving municipal green waste from local waste haulers, processing and composting the material into finished products that the company sells to farmers, landscapers, cities, nurseries, residents and large scale development projects such as SoFi Stadium.

Through the program, cities pay for the compost, and Agromin delivers the material to a designated location where residents who are looking for smaller quantities can pick it up.

Residents also can choose to pay a fee to have compost delivered directly to their homes for larger volumes.

This ease of procurement through the coupon program and online portal sets Agromin apart, Camarillo says.

To help ensure cities comply with the procurement and distribution mandate specified in the California law (Senate Bill, or S.B., 1383), cities that partner with Agromin can track and download their data at the end of the year from CaliforniaCompost.net and upload it to CalRecycle, California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, to meet reporting requirements.

While many organic product companies give away free mulch and compost to nonprofits and community garden programs, Camarillo says, Agromin is the first company in the country to offer a coupon program for jurisdictions to offer their residents.

“We didn’t want jurisdictions to worry about how they were going to buy compost and track distribution,” he explains. “By creating this technology and platform, it keeps track of everything, and it allows jurisdictions to place their orders electronically.”

like an Amazon for compost ...” – Bill Camarillo, Ceo, Agromin

Company history

The company began in 1972, producing chemical-free compost and mulch products using organic material collected from consumers and businesses.

In 1989, Assembly Bill 939 was passed, mandating that cities and counties in the state recycle 50 percent of their waste by 2000 or face penalties. This mandate spurred Agromin’s early growth.

In 2016, California adopted S.B. 1383, which established a statewide target to reduce the volume of organic waste sent to landfills by 75 percent. Implementation took effect in 2022 and includes procurement requirements for jurisdictions to purchase recycled and organic products such as compost and mulch.

The procurement requirement states that each jurisdiction in California, with a few exemptions, must purchase 8 percent of its population in tons of compost or mulch. For example, a city with 100,000 people would have to buy roughly 8,000 tons of mulch.

California cities have many options for what they can do with the compost and mulch they purchase, including using the products in parks and street medians or brokering them to farms.

The residential coupon program, which Agromin launched in 2023, has become popular, Camarillo says.

One development coming soon is that Agromin compost and cover mulch will be available in bags as well as by the cubic yard. This allows residents without pickup trucks or other large vehicles to easily transport the material. The company says its bagged Compost 100 and Cover Mulch are the only S.B. 1383-compliant bagged materials available in the state.

Santa Clarita pilot

Last year, Agromin served more than 52 California jurisdictions. Not every one has adopted the coupon program, but more cities started using it this year, including Camarillo, Fillmore and Santa Clarita. These new cities joined existing program users Sacramento, Oxnard, Ventura and Ventura County.

On April 17, Santa Clarita kicked off a pilot program that ran until June 16. According to Laura Jardine, an administrative analyst in the city’s Environmental Services Division, the pilot was a success.

She says Santa Clarita found the program easy to set up and, in the short time the pilot program ran, many residents were excited about participating.

“The feedback has been great on our social media,” she says. “We’ve gotten a lot of comments and excitement around it, and we get phone calls every week to our office asking for more information.”

With the pilot’s success, Santa Clarita plans to run another program in its new fiscal year, which began in July.

Jardine says the free coupon program not only helped Santa Clarita reach its S.B. 1383 requirements but also increased residents’ knowledge about compost and how it can be beneficial.

“I don’t think that people were necessarily understanding how when they recycle their green waste or compost their food waste that it can come out into a nice, nutrient-rich product that they can use in their homes and on their properties,” she says.

Benefits of compost

Apart from helping communities meet S.B. 1383’s requirements, using compost has a variety of benefits for cities and individual property owners. Camarillo says putting down a layer of compost softens the soil and reduces water consumption by improving water retention and filtration rates. Compost’s organic nutrients make grass greener.

While the free compost and mulch program benefits cities and their residents, its also advantageous to Agromin. The procurement mandate included in S.B. 1383 helps to create a market for compost that’s greater than the available supply in the state.

“In all 33 years of my career, we have always lived in a supply-push market, meaning we got more green waste to compost than we had markets,” Camarillo says. “The state is trying to help develop the market. 

“We’ve always sold products into agriculture, into landscape and retail, but we’ve never had a procurement program like this developed by the state before,” he continues. “It’s really starting to help pull more material through our compost centers. … It’s really helping develop a circular economy right in our backyard.”

The author was an intern with the Recycling Today Media Group.