By the evening of November 26, most Pepper Pike kitchens will have a turkey carcass, a bowl of potato peels, the coffee grounds from a long afternoon and a stack of food-stained paper napkins. Until this fall, a household that wanted to compost all of that rather than send it to a landfill had to pay a private subscription. This year it can go into a five-gallon bucket and then into a bin at the Pepper Pike Service Department at no charge.
In September, the City of Pepper Pike announced a free municipal composting program with Rust Belt Riders, a worker-owned composting cooperative. Registered residents drop accepted materials, food scraps included, into designated bins at the Service Department. The same service costs money in several neighboring communities. That makes this Thanksgiving the first holiday when a Pepper Pike household's full set of food scraps can go somewhere other than the trash for free.
The Holiday Table, Sorted
Rust Belt Riders publishes a detailed accepted-materials list, and the Pepper Pike bins follow it. For holiday cooking, it accepts more than many people expect. The bins take meat, bones, dairy, seafood, cooked foods, coffee grounds and eggshells, along with some food-soiled paper and household organic items.
On a typical Thanksgiving, that list covers:
- The turkey carcass, leftover bones and trimmed skin
- Vegetable peels, onion skins, squash seeds and cranberry ends
- Leftover stuffing, casseroles, rolls and pie that won't be eaten
- Cheese rinds and dairy that has gone off
- Eggshells from baking and coffee grounds from the pot
- Food-soiled paper napkins and paper towels
Some things stay out, and a few of them are common in a holiday kitchen. Rust Belt Riders excludes produce stickers, large quantities of cooking oil, wrappers, yard waste, plastic bags, pet waste, medications, plastics, metals, and contaminated or coated papers. Before the bucket goes out, the items to remove are:
- Produce stickers. Peel them off the apples and squash first.
- The fryer. Anyone frying a turkey this year should keep that large volume of oil out of the bucket.
- "Compostable" plates and cutlery. Single-use compostable items are accepted only if they carry BPI, CMA or TUV certification. A product labeled "eco-friendly" with none of those marks goes in the trash.
- Plastic bags. Even bags sold as liners belong on the excluded list.
- Leaves and garden trimmings. Yard waste is excluded, so the late-fall cleanup has to go out by a different route.
The rule on certified compostables matters most for a large gathering. A host who buys paper plates for twenty guests can check the package for one of those three certifications in the store and save sorting time after dinner.
What the Same Bucket Costs Elsewhere
Free food-scrap composting isn't standard across the east side. Each nearby city has set up its arrangement with Rust Belt Riders differently, and the cost to a household ranges from nothing to more than $500 a year.
| Option | What it is | Cost to the household |
|---|---|---|
| Pepper Pike | Drop-off bins at the Service Department, city program announced September 2026 | Free |
| Beachwood | Residential food-scrap program with Rust Belt Riders, launched April 22, 2024 | Free |
| Shaker Heights | Citywide drop-off at six locations, launched April 22, 2025 | Free |
| Cleveland Heights | Pilot drop-off sites, first at Dave's Market in Severance Town Center | No cost |
| Orange Village | Drop-off at the Community Garden | $12 per month |
| Rust Belt Riders home pickup | Weekly curbside collection | Advertised "as low as $45/month," with a $55 monthly option listed |
Pepper Pike now sits with Beachwood and Shaker Heights in offering the service free, while Orange Village runs a fee-based drop-off at its Community Garden. Cleveland Heights started with a no-cost pilot at Dave's Market and, as cleveland.com reported in January, planned a ribbon-cutting for a second site on February 18.
The bottom row of the table explains why the program announcement made a point of addressing existing customers. Rust Belt Riders' home pickup page lists Pepper Pike in its service area, along with Beachwood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights. It advertises weekly curbside service "as low as $45/month," and its payment options include $55 monthly, $300 every six months or $540 a year. The city's announcement tells current Rust Belt Riders members not to fill out the registration form. Instead, they should email [email protected], and the company's team will move them into Pepper Pike's municipal program. For a household that brings its own bucket to the Service Department, the change replaces a paid subscription with a free drop-off.
How Pepper Pike Set Up Its Version
Each city's version is set up differently. In Shaker Heights, cleveland.com reported that the city agreed to pay Rust Belt Riders $75,000 to set up six drop-off locations. That citywide program followed a 2023 free pilot in the Lomond neighborhood, which served 126 households and collected more than 30,000 pounds.
Pepper Pike chose a narrower approach. According to Citizen Portal's account of the council vote, Council voted May 27 to authorize the mayor to enter into a pilot contract with Rust Belt Riders for community composting and education services. Councilors described a pay-per-bin model and recommended that the city support outreach and supply buckets. Under that model, the city's cost depends on the bins at the Service Department rather than on a fixed price for a set of sites, as in Shaker Heights. It also means the program is starting as a pilot.
Pepper Pike also added a reason to keep participating. Residents who register will receive 10 gallons of finished compost in the spring, which the city describes as roughly a garden-center bag. Shaker Heights' pilot moved more than 30,000 pounds through a single neighborhood. That gives a sense of how much material one holiday season's turkey bones and peels can add up to across a whole community.
Getting a Bucket Ready Before the 26th
Registration happens online. The city's newsletter links to a Rust Belt Riders signup form for Pepper Pike residents. Participation is free for Pepper Pike residents.
The city scheduled a grand opening for Friday, October 2, at 5:30 p.m., where registered residents could pick up a bucket. The city's announcement described the giveaway as a free five-gallon bucket and lid to help participants get started.
Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year. Two weeks is enough time to register before the cooking starts. The September issue of the Pepper Pike Post and the city's News Flash page carry the program details and any updates the city posts.
One related holiday item from the city: Pepper Pike is running a 2026 Holiday Virtual Food Drive for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Food that can still be eaten belongs there, and the scraps left after the meal go in the bucket.
Questions about how city services like this one fit into daily life in Pepper Pike come up often in our conversations with clients, and so do the bigger decisions that follow them. If you would like a local perspective on either, Adam Kaufman and his team are glad to talk it through. Just Ask Adam.
