Story of Us

It all started when Melanie was working for a South Austin yoga studio. Throughout the day, the studio would serve Chai Tea in compostable cups to students, and throughout the day, those cups would get tossed in the trash can.

Melanie asked her boss if they might replace the compostable cups with the less costly recyclable ones. However, her boss, like many people, was unaware of the impact of compostable products going into the trash, “At least they will break down in the landfill” was her response. Unfortunately, aside from being more expensive, it is actually harmful for organic/compostable materials to break down in the landfill (that’s how methane gets released!).

With that, Melanie began her search for a composting company in Austin that would work with smaller businesses like this studio, but there were none.

One day while Jeff and Mel were walking their dog Larry, they realized—

“We’ve got a truck.”
“Why don’t we just do it?”

By the end of the walk, they had a rough business plan, a few potential clients in mind, and even the name for the business: Break it Down!

As the vision grew they recognized that food waste could offer a valuable commodity to local economies – from job creation to novel product development – adding to the ever-evolving green economy while reducing the impact of waste on urban communities.

Funding in the early days presented a challenge. Despite initial success in the University of Texas’s 2009 global Dell Social Innovation competition, they realized that the schmoozing needed to fundraise was just not their style, so they rolled up their sleeves and got their hands (very) dirty!

Since then, Break it Down has grown exponentially, not just in clients, but in employees and in the business’s scope, as well.

These days, Break it Down resides off of East MLK in the company’s largest-scale facility yet. It has grown into a family of 20-plus employees from all walks of life and has become the go-to compost and recycling solution for businesses in Austin, Waco, and San Antonio.

In addition to the services they provide to businesses, Break it Down works with organic material in innovative ways. For example, using the discarded meat from bone broth for dog food, and the remaining bones for a bone meal fertilizer. They’re also working with a nonprofit using biocharred bones for water filtration – an effective way to remove fluoride and pollutants from groundwater in countries like Mexico.

This is why Break it Down’s tagline has become Composting and Beyond. There are so many ways to more effectively use organics than just tossing them out. Not with a lot of fluff, or schmoozing, or greenwashing; but with hard work and dirty hands, to truly make an impact.