Composting is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to reduce waste, nourish soil, and fight climate change right from your backyard—or even your apartment. Now, thanks to a growing network of community composting efforts through MakeSoil.org and Queen City Commons, it's easier than ever to get started. In fact, new free food scrap drop-off sites have recently launched in neighborhoods across Cincinnati and continue to expand. Whether you want to contribute your food scraps or become a "soil maker" yourself, MakeSoil connects you with local composting sites where your banana peels, coffee grounds, and veggie scraps can become rich, life-giving soil instead of landfill waste.  

And here's a bonus: when you join or create a composting site through MakeSoil, you can earn a FREE kitchen food scrap bucket to make collecting your scraps at home even easier. Simply email a screenshot or confirmation email showing that you've joined a composting site to OES@cincinnati-oh.gov, and we'll take care of the rest. Together, we can grow a stronger, greener, more soil-smart Cincinnati—one banana peel at a time. 

Thanks to the leadership of University of Cincinnati professor, Amanda Webb, Cincinnati is leading a coalition of Ohio cities to build the foundation for Building Performance Standards (BPS) in Ohio. According to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA), an expert partner in this project, “a Building Performance Standard (BPS) sets energy use or carbon emissions thresholds for commercial and multifamily residential buildings, often enacted at the city or state level. To ensure tracking and compliance, energy consumption of buildings is measured by trained energy professionals and reported to the proper governmental entities, such as a local Office of Sustainability.”  

Why is this important? It is a keystone step in ensuring our city and region meet its climate goals. Several large cities in our region have already moved in this direction, including St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. In the early stages, engagement of building owners is paramount. To this end, UC, OES, and MEEA hosted a group of 35 key stakeholders at the Cincinnati Regional Chamber in late June to launch Cincinnati’s BPS Working Group. If you are interested in learning more, click here. If you are interested in joining the effort, please contact Chris Heckman at chris.heckman@cincinnati-oh.gov.  



One of OES's key USDA Food Waste Reduction and Community Composting grant partners is the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA), which primarily focuses on a practice called "gleaning." Gleaning entails working with farmers to collect any food they have that is not going to be sold, but is still good to eat. Society of St. Andrew's local staff and volunteers harvest produce out of the fields, pick it up at the packing house, or collect it at the end of a farmers' market. In essence, SOSA fills a specific niche in food rescue by gleaning locally grown food.  

If you are interested in helping SOSA in this pursuit to reduce food waste, sign up on their volunteer platform. In the coming weeks, SOSA will have five weekly farm gleanings, three seasonal farmers' market gleanings, several standard pickups from Findlay Market, and multiple one-off or pop-up gleanings that occur throughout the harvest season. Please sign up to join SOSA in their efforts to reduce food waste through gleaning! 



This summer, the Office of Environment & Sustainability welcomes three excited interns who are bringing fresh energy, ideas, and passion to our work. 

Jake Grimmer, our OES Energy Fellow, is a 5th-year Architectural Engineering student at the University of Cincinnati. Originally from Indianapolis, Jake has conducted research in building science and even helped create a board game about building decarbonization. He’s excited to dive deeper into the built environment and energy work at OES. 

Jamiya Barnett, a Cincinnati native and CPI Fellow, joins us from The Ohio State University, where she studied Public Management, Leadership, and Policy. With a passion for environmental conservation sparked in high school, she’s excited to contribute to the Green Cincinnati Plan and pursue a future in environmental and energy policy. 

Renata Dashevsky is a Seasongood Fellow and student of UC’s DAAP program in Urban Planning and Design. She’s passionate about sustainable, people-centered cities and is thrilled to be supporting urban design and equity initiatives with the Green Cincinnati Plan. 

We’re proud to have these future sustainability leaders on board and can’t wait to see their impact!