Our Story

Fears of mice, smells and all things gross kept me from composting for years. I’m a born and bred New Yorker who escaped city life for suburbia after rats had infiltrated our Lower East Side neighborhood as if they owned it.

And Java? Java is from San Francisco which should already explain a lot. His birth name really is Java. Another clue into who he is. For his 6th birthday, his home-birth midwife mom made him a strawberry cashew cake which she convinced him would be the talk of the town. Forty years later, he still tells our boys the story of the infamous cashew cake. A little ptsd anyone?

Despite Java’s encouragement, I flat out refused to give composting a try. I knew he understood how to do it. He had successfully been managing the three bin compost system at a charter school in Newark for over a year. But I just couldn’t see why anyone would want to recycle their food scraps. I mean, it was just trash. Wasn’t it?

Then, we were standing in our kitchen one evening and he held up a banana peel and said “see this? This can turn into soil.” I looked at him, annoyed and confused. How could a banana peel, something that is in a solid form, turn into dirt? I just couldn’t wrap my urban jungle brain around it.

Later that night, we watched Dirt, The Movie and my Oprah, a-ha moment was born. See, I like to eat, and I like to eat good, flavorful food. The flavor in food comes from nutrients and nutrients come from healthy soil. But due to destructive industrial farming practices, the soil in the U.S. is depleted of these nutrients and the ecosystem that brings life to the land was largely destroyed.

Though our company started as a family venture, it has quickly grown into a thriving compost community, green team of compost warriors, and Java’s Compost warehouse in Orange, NJ with expanded services including residential and commercial pickups, municipal and community drop-offs, and consulting services. We are active members of the United States Compost Council (USCC), founding members of the New Jersey Composting Council (NJCC) as well as Java holding a certification from The 131° School Of Composting.

We also set up schools and colleges with on-site composting solutions that reduce food waste and generate thousands of pounds of precious, black gold each year!