04/22/2026
🌍Happy Earth Day!🌏
🌎We here at the Swarthmore CO-OP are committed to sustainability, and we want to take a moment to reflect on the efforts we have made this year.
🗑️As you may know, at the end of 2025 we wrapped up our partnership with Rot Star who facilitated the Rot n Roll customer compost collection program. We had been working with Rot Star since 2022 and composting our in-store composting and in August 2023, we began to collect customer composting as well with Rot n Roll! We had a great few years of collection with them, and Kristin from Rot Star shared some amazing metrics to show for it:
Rot n Roll total customer compost since 2023: 41,760 lbs. (21 tons)
Equivalent to:
🐘5 large adult elephants
🛥️1 large container ship's cargo
🚢1 small destroyer ship’s load
In-Store Rot Star compost since 2022: 135,905 lbs. (68 tons)
🌏That’s the equivalent of 6,115 gallons of gas offset!
🌏Or 134,817 miles of driving offset!
🌍Total amount composted in store and Rot n Roll: 178,000 lbs. (89 tons)!
🗑️As sad as we are to see Rot Star go, Kristin happily passed the torch to EZ-Compost to continue our in-store composting collection and township-wide collection for Swarthmoreans! Along with this, we also have re-introduced in-store recycling for collection from the borough this year.
🥦Our partnership with Philly Food Rescue continues to run strong with re-distributing tens of thousands of pounds of food to those in need each year which would have otherwise been waste!
🍅One of our biggest produce suppliers here, Four Seasons Produce, has been partnered with Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, and a portion of every organic sale goes towards funding the many exciting projects Pasa organizes to improve sustainability and education efforts between farmers, distributors, retailers, and consumers during Earth Week this week.
📍And last, but certainly not least. We are proud to carry 80+ local products in our store now which helps lower emissions from transportation and keeps us connected to the things in our very own community.
🌍Happy Earth Day everyone!🌍
