Table to Farm Compost is a Durango-based climate activist business turning food scraps into compost and keeping organic waste out of the landfill. Founded in 2016, the company offers curbside pickup of food scraps and transforms them into high quality compost used by local gardeners and agricultural producers across La Plata County. Co-owner Monique DiGiorgio was recently recognized as the 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year by Southwest Colorado Rocks for her leadership in growing the company to more than 800 subscribers and achieving the highest level of compost certification in Colorado. With Durango’s Bonded Landfill at 70% capacity and Durango City Council set to decide on composting requirements this fall, Table to Farm is at the center of an important local conversation.
This story is sponsored by FASTSIGNS Durango, Legacy Financial Advisors and RMW/Tafoya Barrett & Associates.
And presented by the La Plata County Economic Alliance and the Durango Chamber of Commerce.
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Transcript
Table to Farm Compost is a climate activist business, and it’s kind of a play on words, table to farm, because we take food scraps from your table, bring it to our farm here, right in Durango, and make compost out of it. Our mission is to recycle organics into compost and save the planet. We take that really seriously because the environmental impact of food rotting in the landfill and methane emissions is pretty huge from a climate standpoint. So we provide curbside recycling of your food waste. So food waste is picked up in five gallon buckets and it’s an alternative to landfilling your trash. In the landfill, it breaks down anaerobically without oxygen, and anaerobic decomposition produces methane. Methane over a 20-year period of time is 84 times as potent of a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. When we think about waste diversion and the impact of organics in the landfill, it’s not only the methane emissions, but our local landfill, which is called Bondad, is at 70% capacity. So there’s only 30% left of the landfill, and it costs 2.25 million to build a cell in the landfill. So at some great expense, we have limited capacity. We can expand that capacity. But if we were to divert 30 to 40% of our organic waste in La Plata County away from the landfill, we would actually expand the life of the landfill by eight years and save $2.25 million. So there’s an economic case to be found as well. One of the really cool things about ompost is that it’s a soil amendment and it’s organic, not in the sense that it’s certified organic, which is how people think of that word, but it was made from things that were once living. And an organic fertilizer, or organic soil amendment that compost is, is really full of microbes and good stuff for your garden. It has all of these benefits around water, microbes, and overall plant health that a synthetic fertilizer just isn’t going to have. It’s really rewarding to have local agricultural producers, you know, when you go to the farmer’s market and you get your produce, give you feedback that you’re making a product that their veggies love. We’re just the right size in Durango that we can capture an extraordinary percentage of our food waste, bring it here, and recycle it all, and still stay within kind of a pretty reasonable footprint. So the model of Table to Farm Compost and our community and the values that the community have are really well aligned. Main Street Businesses, La Plata County, Colorado is brought to you by FastSigns Durango, Legacy Financial Advisors, and RMW Tafoya Barrett and Associates. Series partners include the La Plata County Economic Alliance and the Durango Chamber of Commerce.
