Meet the Composter: Nicole Zapata

Nicole Zapata

Nicole Zapata lives in Conshohocken with her husband and three children. Nicole loves to garden, hike and camp with her family. 

Back to Earth Compost Crew is not Nicole’s first experience with composting. She and her husband started composting at home, in the backyard of their first house, 17 years ago with a worm bin. Nicole says “that was fun, I didn’t know much at the time and all the worms died but I was hooked.” Since then, she has used home composting set ups and values the improvement in her trash bags most of all. She and her family switched over to Back to Earth Collection Sites two years ago, because their compost tumbler is not big enough for the family’s kitchen scraps. Nicole appreciates the ease of using the collection sites, rather than having to spin the heavy barrel! They still use their tumbler for some scraps, as well as yard clean up. 

Nicole chooses to compost, because in addition to being a gardener and knowing the benefits of returning nutrients back into the soil, she works in the waste and recycling industry and has been to several landfills. She says, “It makes a lot of sense that this material should be put back into the earth. I also love that my trash bags are minimal, about one bag a week and they don’t stink.”

Nicole and her family have many sustainable practices. They use basic cleaning products whenever possible, limit single-use plastics and refrain from buying things they don’t need. 

Her favorite sustainable practice is trying to make dinner out of what needs to be used up in the fridge. According to Nicole, “I might not feel like eating half a head of red cabbage, but I get online and search for recipes with whatever ingredient I’m trying to use up. “We reached out to Back to Earth Compost Crew to start the Conshohocken Collection Site after realizing that so many gardeners in our membership are interested in compost. We were also receiving inquiries from the community asking if they could use our compost bin for their kitchen scraps. Our bins aren’t able to support kitchen scraps in addition to the community garden’s refuse so it was a win-win to partner with BTE!”

Nicole’s favorite thing about Back to Earth Compost Crew is the Collection Sites, which she describes as being easy and a great price. She likes having the option to switch to curbside service during times periods when her weekends get busy and she is unable to make it to the drop off. 

Back to Earth Compost Crew is happy to have Nicole in our composting community!