Food waste is a significant – and often overlooked – contributor to climate change. In fact, if food waste was a country, it would rank third in terms of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. Tackling food waste could bring the world significantly closer to meeting the goals set in the Paris Agreement. That’s where Ciclo Orgânico comes in.

Ciclo Orgânico is a subscription based, bicycle powered, urban composting service in Rio de Janeiro. Customers pay a small monthly fee and in exchange, they receive an 18-litre bucket with a compostable bag to collect food scraps. Ciclo Orgânico collects the waste buckets, using their specially adapted bicycles to deliver the buckets to a local composting site where the food waste is transformed into rich, fertile soils. Customers can then choose to keep this soil for their own use or donate it to one of several local community garden projects.