FOR HOUSTON OFFICES & WORKPLACES
Office Composting in Houston
OnFarmCompost picks up breakroom and kitchen food waste from Houston-area offices in a 55-gallon gasket-sealed drum kept outside near your dumpster. It is for any office, coworking space, or corporate kitchen with a breakroom that fills a trash can with food scraps and coffee grounds. $10 per barrel, with a free waste audit and a 1 week free trial before you commit to anything.
The one condition: keep it separate.
Organic material must arrive source-separated or depackaged. Streams that arrive mixed with packaging or general trash are not accepted. A breakroom can that only ever holds food scraps and coffee grounds qualifies.
A can mixed with wrappers, cutlery, or other packaging needs to be sorted before it can go in the drum, and sorting isn't a service we offer.
A drum outside, a normal can inside
Office accounts use the same 55-gallon food-grade drums with gasket-sealed lids as our grocer and food-producer accounts. The drum lives outside near your dumpster or another outdoor spot. Never inside. There is no special indoor equipment to buy or maintain.
In the breakroom or kitchen, your team keeps its own lined garbage can for food scraps, the same as they do today. When it's full, they tie the liner like a normal trash bag and carry it out to the drum instead of the dumpster. That is the entire indoor routine: one can, one bag, one short walk.
The weekly swap and weighing
Set route day
weekly drum exchange, on a schedule your facilities team can plan around. You always know when pickup happens.
Full drum out, clean drum in
A filled drum runs 100 to 200 pounds. We haul it, weigh it, and leave a clean one. The lifting is our job, not your team's.
Composted on local farms
Your office's food waste goes straight to local farms and is sheet-composted on that land. We do not sell or give away the finished compost.
What your office can and cannot compost
Keep the list posted by the breakroom can
Goes in the can
- All food scraps: fruit, vegetables, meat, bones, dairy
- Post-service plate scrapings when kept source-separated from packaging and serviceware
- Coffee grounds
- Small amounts of pan grease (not fryer oil)
- Eggshells
Stays out
- Paper (towels, napkins, filters)
- Plastics, including "compostable" bioplastics
- Fryer grease and oil, including grease-trap waste
Same rules as our commercial composting service for grocers and food producers. Offices just run a smaller volume.
Monthly reporting your sustainability lead can use
Every drum is weighed at exchange. Office accounts get monthly measured diversion summary; modeled environmental estimates labeled separately, built from those actual weights, not estimates. That is ready-made data for a facilities manager reporting to leadership, a property manager tracking a building's diversion rate, or a sustainability lead filling out an ESG questionnaire, B Corp recertification, or green-building submission.
Houston has no citywide municipal compost pickup for businesses, so offices here work with a private service to divert organics and get a documented number for it.
How to start office composting
- 1. Free waste audit. We look at your breakroom volume and current dumpster setup and scope drum count.
- 2. One-week free trial. A 1 week trial, no contract, so your team can see how the routine fits before you commit.
- 3. Set your route day. Once you're on, weekly swap and weighing runs on a set schedule your facilities team can plan around.
Want the fuller walkthrough first? See how pickup works or try the waste audit calculator to estimate your office's volume. Confirm your building is in range on our service areas page.
Office Composting FAQ
Will the office compost bin smell?
Not in your workspace. The drum is a 55-gallon food-grade container with a gasket-sealed lid that contains odor and limits pest access while closed, and it sits outside near your dumpster, not in the breakroom. Inside, your team just uses a normal lined garbage can, the same as they do today.
What can our office put in the drum?
All food scraps: all food scraps: fruit, vegetables, meat, bones, dairy; post-service plate scrapings when kept source-separated from packaging and serviceware; coffee grounds; small amounts of pan grease (not fryer oil). We keep out paper (towels, napkins, filters); plastics, including "compostable" bioplastics; fryer grease and oil, including grease-trap waste. That includes napkins, paper towels, and coffee filters, plus anything plastic, even serviceware labeled "compostable".
Do you provide diversion reporting for offices?
Yes. Every drum is weighed at exchange, and office accounts get a monthly ESG-ready report covering diversion tonnage, methane avoided, and contamination rate. It is built from actual weights, so it drops straight into a sustainability update, a property manager report, or a green-building submission.
How much does office composting cost, and is there a contract?
$10 per barrel, weighed at every exchange. We start with a free waste audit, then a 1 week free trial so your team can see how it fits before committing to anything. No contract.
Who empties the drum, and how often?
We do, on a weekly swap for every account. A full drum runs 100 to 200 pounds, and the lifting is our job, not your facilities team's. On route day we haul the full drum, weigh it, and leave a clean one.
Do you serve office buildings across the Houston area?
We serve Harris County and Fort Bend County. If your office is in either county, we can usually add you to an existing route. Call +1 713-822-3398 to confirm.
Running a grocery, food-production, or other commercial kitchen instead? See our commercial composting service.
Ready to start office composting?
We'll start with a free waste audit, then set up your drum and route.