As April wraps up, along with Earth month, many businesses are still looking to try and turn over a new, more sustainable leaf.

For Impact Earth, sustainability is not just part of its business, it is their business.

“Waste is not really waste,” said Robert Putney, CEO and owner of Impact Earth. “It can be reused. And so that’s sort of part of the mindfulness piece of that. So we have a broad-based vertically integrated approach to that.”

For Putney, it was having six children that made him really think about sustainability.

“And so that’s my motivation every day is that I’m going to leave the planet better than I found it,” he said.

It’s something he’s been working to do since Impact Earth started in 2012 and now growing into its second location on Monroe Avenue. 

“So we’ve got a long history here in the Finger Lakes region of doing this work,” he said. “And you can see we’ve been busy all day.”

But the busiest part has been their retail compost swap, where those in the membership program can trade in their waste and exchange it for soil.

“Our members get soil back once a year,” Putney said. “If you’re a curbside member, we deliver it to your house. If you’re a retail member, meaning you come to the store and do the swap, then you come to the store and get your soil. And so today’s that day.”

Members bring their bucket of food scraps and pay $5.00 to swap their bucket, receiving five gallons of compost soil.

“We have over 5,000 subscribers to our food scrap collection service,” Putney said. “[We have] over 200 commercial accounts. We work with 12 school districts. Brighton was the first school district and this is our sixth year with Brighton.”

It’s giving Putney the opportunity to use his business to spread a greater message.

“We’re just trying to get people to be aware and mindful that there’s a better way to live,” he said.