Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, known as SWACO, came to council Monday with a pilot offer to add curbside food-waste pickup to the city's next trash and recycling contract. Under the proposal, SWACO would cover up to $100,000 of the program's first-year cost, three years of public education, and the small buckets households would put at the curb. In exchange, Worthington would commit to running the program for five years.
About 15% of Worthington's 5,250 households already participate in food waste collection today, through a paid subscription service, the drop-off bin at the Worthington Farmers Market, or the drop-off at the City Recycling Center (at 380 Highland Avenue). The SWACO proposal would make pickup available to every household with no separate signup beyond requesting a bucket.
Worthington is unusual in central Ohio because the city pays for all residential trash, recycling, and yard-waste collection out of its general budget rather than billing households directly. Adding food waste would cost the city somewhere around $136,000 to $168,000 a year on top of the existing contract, based on bids that came in last month from neighboring communities.
Council members expressed broad interest in including curbside composting as an optional add-on in the city’s upcoming trash and recycling bid. This allows the city to see the exact cost of the service before deciding whether to officially launch it. Once the results are in this September or October, the Council can choose to either add the composting service or stick to basic trash pick-up. Any change would begin when the city’s new five-year waste contract takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Why this is the moment
Worthington's current five-year contract with Local Waste Services for trash, recycling, and yard waste expires December 31. City Engineer John Moorehead told council that two things make this the right cycle to ask the food-waste question. First, curbside food-waste collection has matured enough that "community-scale curbside collection of food waste is a reliable option." Two central Ohio communities are running it municipally today. Second, Worthington has already encouraged the practice. It changed its code to let outside haulers do food-waste pickup at the curb, and the new Worthington Recycling Convenience Center that opened May 8 takes hard-to-recycle items at the Highland Complex.
What you would pay, and what subscribers pay today
If you pay for food-waste pickup today from Compost Exchange or a similar hauler, you're paying around $19 per household per month (about 400 Worthington households currently).
Last month's bids from peer central Ohio communities for citywide service, where the city contracts for everyone instead of household-by-household subscriptions, came in at $2.16, $2.68, and $10.50 per household per month. The two lower bids came from the same hauler for two different communities; the difference reflects what each community asked the hauler to provide (containers, liners, route details).
Because Worthington pays for collection citywide, the cost lands in the city's general operating budget rather than on a monthly bill. SWACO's $100,000 first-year offset and free buckets help cushion that first year. City Manager Robyn Stewart was candid about the longer view: if council adds the service and residents start using it, pulling it back later is not realistic. So this is effectively a long-term commitment.
She also flagged the budget context. Worthington's income tax collections are tracking flat. A major employer is leaving the city at year-end. Other revenues are up. Where this fits depends on what else council wants to do with the same money. "If we allocate funding in the budget to this, it's not available for other priorities on the policy agenda."
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Why SWACO recommends "everyone gets a bucket" instead of opt-in
Several council members asked whether the city could limit its exposure by only paying for households that want the service. SWACO's senior program manager Andrew Booker said no, and the reason is two-fold.
The behavioral research is clear: participation rises sharply when a service is the default and falls when it requires signing up. An opt-in model also creates a disincentive for the city to push education that grows participation, because more participation means more cost.
The peer experience backs that up. Bexley, the longest-running municipal food-waste program in central Ohio, sees about 40% participation. Comparable U.S. cities run between 30% and 60%. A 2025 MORPC survey of more than 2,000 residents across the 15-county region found 47% would choose curbside collection if offered, more than community drop-off or backyard composting.
What council asked, and what's not in this offer
Council members tested the proposal from several directions. The buckets seal tightly enough to deter raccoons at Bexley, Upper Arlington, and the village of Marble Cliff. The pickup truck looks nothing like a trash truck — most haulers use small retrofitted pickup beds or Sprinter vans with carts inside, not big rear-loader trash trucks. The bid can specify what day of the week pickup happens.
Multifamily buildings are not part of this offer. Apartments and condos do not get city curbside service in Worthington today; food waste is the same. SWACO said it is starting a working group on multifamily organics and invited Worthington to participate.
Several council members raised the broader question of how the city could push for food-waste collection in nursing homes, congregate living, and schools, where individual households can't make the choice themselves. SWACO operates a Business Recycling Champions program and a Food Waste Champions program offering free containers and reimbursed service to qualifying private organizations.