The Young Professionals’ Emerging Composter Competition Returns to Virtual Compost2021!

The USCC’s Young Professionals Group is excited to announce that, in cooperation with the Compost Research and Education Foundation, they are continuing to host the Emerging Composter Competition this year at Virtual COMPOST2021! This competition has traditionally involved a poster presentation at our compost conference and highlights new business or research projects that are involved with the composting industry or organics recycling. This year competitors will have short video presentations available on our Virtual COMPOST2021 platform. All conference attendees will be able to view the presentations and vote on their favorite projects. Our top three winners of the competition will receive cash prizes.

We would like to thank our generous sponsors of the competition this year! Check them out at their websites here: BioBag Americas, McGill Environmental Systems, and beyond GREEN, LLC dba bioDOGradable Bags. We welcome more sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring this competition, please reach out to Megan Hester at mhester@compostingcouncil.org.

For those of you interested in competing, our Young Professionals Group has been hard at work making plans for the competition. Keep your eye out for the applications, which will be opening up soon and will be available on our website. Applicants can be college students to any for-profit or not-for-profit business owners who have been in existence 3 years or less. They should have an annual sales revenue of $100,000 or less and should be looking for ways to gain feedback and momentum in pursuing their project, program, or business concept. The Virtual COMPOST2021 Conference is a great place to share ideas and brainstorm with other folks in the industry. We are excited to see all the great projects, businesses, and ideas that are presented this year. Our virtual conference platform will allow for new, creative ways of presenting ideas – we look forward to seeing the new ways competitors take advantage of this!

Those of you who might not be "emerging” and have been in the industry a bit too long to compete, we also need you! Every attendee at the conference gets a chance to vote and be a judge of the competition this year. Be sure to register for Virtual COMPOST2021 to take part in the voting! Join us to make a vote for who receives the cash prizes and see the innovative new ideas in the competition. This competition continues to encourage new growth, research, and ideas in the composting industry!