The Economics of What We Throw Away

About GroundWork NYC

I'm Adrian Hamblin. I'm building a company in the Bronx that turns organic waste into something useful — soil products, animal feed, carbon credits.

It's called Integrated Organic Solutions, and it's very much a work in progress. Groundwork is where I write about that process — not just the company, but the bigger picture it sits inside. The circular economy. The partnerships and synergies that make it work. The moments where an entire industry's assumptions look like they're pointing in the wrong direction.

I started this because I believe a few things pretty deeply:

Waste isn't waste — it's misplaced abundance. What we throw away is concentrated biological value that nature never meant to end up in a landfill.

Nature runs in cycles, not straight lines. For billions of years, natural systems turned outputs into inputs. Modern waste management broke those cycles. Somebody needs to reconnect them.

Cities are nutrient mines. Urban centers concentrate resources pulled from farms, forests, and oceans. That concentration is an opportunity, not just a problem.

The highest form of sustainability is profitability. If transforming waste is more profitable than dumping it, the world changes fast — no guilt required.

I don't have all of this figured out. Some of what I believe might be wrong, and there's plenty I don't understand yet. But the direction makes sense to me, and I think it's worth moving toward — publicly, honestly, and with the input of anyone who wants to think about this stuff alongside me.If that sounds like your kind of thing, welcome. You're in the right place.