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Boston Housing Authority: improving waste control and organics capture at Bunker Hill

Home » Case Studies » Boston Housing Authority: improving waste control and organics capture at Bunker Hill
Client:

Boston Housing Authority

Location:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Application:

Multifamily waste, recycling, and organics infrastructure

Product Solutions:

metroSTOR BD300 / metroSTOR BC130 / metroSTOR FX65

Creating a more workable system for waste, recycling, and organics

At Bunker Hill, Boston Housing Authority’s largest public housing development, the waste system was creating persistent cleanliness and rodent problems while also failing to support credible separation across trash, recycling, and organics.

Open dumpsters and carts were contributing to contamination, overflow, bulky-item dumping, and exposed food waste. Without a more structured deposit system, residents had little support for separating materials properly, and staff were left managing poor site conditions without a reliable foundation for improvement.

A pilot built around clearer separation and stronger containment

Boston Housing Authority introduced a controlled containerization pilot at Bunker Hill to create a more structured system for trash, recycling, and organics.

The pilot replaced open dumpsters with secure, access-controlled metroSTOR enclosures for each stream, creating a centralized drop-off point and shifting disposal from an unmanaged activity to a designed one. The new setup improved physical separation between waste types, reduced misuse, and gave food waste a more contained route that could better support organics diversion while reducing rodent access.

The system was intended not as a one-off installation, but as a repeatable platform that could improve sorting, support cleaner conditions, and provide a more credible basis for future scale.

Better sorting and cleaner waste areas from the outset

Installation was completed in spring 2024, followed by documented inspections to establish an operational baseline. These reviews looked at fill levels, contamination, estimated weights, and general site conditions across trash, recycling, and organics.

Early findings showed that the new setup was already improving system performance. Sorting was stronger, contamination was lower within the enclosure area, and waste conditions were visibly more stable. Bulky items and other issues remained easier to identify and manage because the problems were no longer dispersed loosely across the site.

That shift matters because in dense multifamily environments, cleaner waste areas and better separation usually rise or fall together. Once the deposit system becomes clearer and more controlled, both operational conditions and diversion outcomes become easier to improve.

Making organics diversion viable in a dense housing environment

One of the clearest signs of progress was the early performance of the organics stream.

By early 2025, Boston Housing Authority had already diverted food scraps and organics away from incineration and landfill through the pilot system and into on-farm composting. That provided early evidence that organics diversion could work in a dense public housing environment where previous models had struggled to hold up.

“Thus far, we have diverted over 1,600 lbs of food scraps and organics at Charlestown from incineration and landfill to on-farm composting using your metroSTOR enclosures.”

Building a stronger case for wider rollout

Bunker Hill was intentionally treated as a demanding test case, particularly because of the site’s history of rodent pressure and difficult waste conditions.

Its success helped create a stronger case for broader investment. Instead of relying on assumption, Boston Housing Authority could point to cleaner conditions, better sorting, and viable organics diversion in a high-pressure residential setting. That gave the pilot value beyond the immediate site: it became evidence that a better-contained system could support both operational improvement and wider recycling and organics goals.

What this shows for multifamily housing providers

The Bunker Hill project shows that in dense public housing environments, better recycling and organics performance depends on better infrastructure first.

When open dumpsters are replaced with secure, clearly separated collection points, it becomes easier to reduce contamination, improve sorting, support food waste diversion, and create cleaner, more manageable site conditions overall. For housing providers, that makes waste, recycling, and organics infrastructure a practical lever for both day-to-day performance and longer-term sustainability goals.

“metroSTOR’s innovative system has been a valuable asset in empowering our community to reimagine ‘waste’, helping residents become more intentional about their resources and where they deposit them.”

Bobby Bell
Green Infrastructure Deployment Manager
Boston Housing Authority

Looking to improve waste, recycling, and organics infrastructure across your housing portfolio?

We work with housing providers and public agencies to design infrastructure that improves cleanliness, supports better sorting, and helps shared residential environments perform more reliably over time.

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