Secondhand Soil turns trash into treasure

April 23, 2021

Ariel Schiller,

FORSYTH, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Candace Neller-Harper is composting other people’s trash and turning it into soil. That’s the idea she had in mind when she started Secondhand Soil in 2019. She says she began with just two clients, and within two years it’s grown to more than 200 clients. Neller-Harper says the response is overwhelming.

“People didn’t even know they were looking for something like this, and once they sign up they’re all in,” said Neller-Harper. “They’re like ‘can you come pick up my leaves? Can you come pick up this extra cardboard I have? I don’t want to throw stuff in the trash anymore.”

Secondhand Soil gives clients bins to fill with food scraps, glass, and trash. Neller-Harper will even pick up leaves and cardboard. When the bins are full, she replaces it with a clean one weekly or every two weeks. She then takes the food scraps and cardboard and turns it into soil through composting.

“It’s super affordable,” says Neller-Harper. “It’s really easy. I make it clean for you. You don’t have to wait for the compost. As soon as you hit that 30 pound mark. I bring you ten pounds of soil back.”

Neller-Harper says she donates soil to local farms. Then she buys food from the farms to sell back to her customers, as a way complete the local food cycle. According to Candace, she’s composted more than 100,000 pounds of trash. She says composting half of your trash instead of sending it to the landfill can help cut down on carbon emissions.

“If it’s sitting in the landfill releasing methane, methane is also a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change so this is super important to do,” says Neller-Harper.