In 2014, Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago cold-composted 320 tons of grass clippings across 120 acres, lifting waste diversion from 18% to 39% overall

In 2014, the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois, demonstrated that an environmental breakthrough does not always require expensive equipment or complicated infrastructure. By using a simple practice known as cold composting, the healthcare center prevented 320 tons of lawn waste from entering landfills. The approach helped raise the facility’s overall landfill waste diversion rate from less than 18% to 39%, representing a 21-percentage-point improvement. The EPA documented the project as part of its Federal Green Challenge, highlighting how an ordinary lawn-care practice could become a meaningful waste-reduction strategy.

The idea behind cold composting is remarkably straightforward. Instead of collecting grass clippings after mowing and transporting them elsewhere, the clippings are left on the lawn, where they naturally decompose. As the organic material breaks down, nutrients return to the soil, helping support soil fertility. Unlike conventional composting, which generally involves collecting organic materials and managing them in a designated composting system, cold composting essentially allows the lawn to perform the decomposition process where the grass was originally grown. At Lovell, this approach was used throughout the seven-month lawn-mowing season, turning routine landscaping into an important waste-diversion activity.

The scale of Lovell’s campus made the strategy particularly significant. The facility occupied approximately 120 acres and included a full hospital, residences and a power plant. It served sailors connected with Naval Station Great Lakes as well as veterans from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Managing landscaping across such a large property naturally generated substantial quantities of grass clippings. Instead of treating those clippings solely as waste requiring collection and disposal, Lovell recognized them as an organic resource that could remain where they were generated. The result was an impressive reduction in the amount of material requiring landfill disposal without creating a separate stream of collected lawn waste.


One of the most interesting aspects of the Lovell Federal Health Care Center story was its use of measurement. The facility developed a Cold Composting Calculator to estimate the amount of lawn material diverted through the practice. The spreadsheet-based tool incorporated meteorological, climate and geographic information, along with lawn-area data, to estimate how much grass waste could be left on the ground rather than sent to a landfill or traditional composting facility. This measurement system mattered because environmental programs often depend on demonstrating results. By quantifying material that otherwise might have gone unreported, Lovell could better document the environmental value of a practice it was already performing.

The environmental benefits extended beyond simply reducing landfill volume. According to the EPA case study, keeping grass clippings on-site also avoided some of the energy use, vehicle exhaust and greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting lawn waste to disposal facilities. The returning organic matter could also improve soil fertility. In other words, the practice addressed multiple environmental concerns simultaneously: waste generation, transportation impacts and the loss of useful organic material. EPA described the approach as a way to capture an environmental benefit that facilities might otherwise overlook when calculating their waste-diversion performance.

Lovell’s experience also fits into a broader federal effort to rethink how government facilities manage resources. The EPA’s Federal Green Challenge encouraged federal agencies to reduce waste, conserve resources and minimize environmental impacts. Lovell had participated in the program since 2011 in areas including energy, transportation and waste, and the facility received Federal Green Challenge recognition for transportation and overall achievement and innovation. The cold-composting project was particularly notable because it showed that sustainability improvements can sometimes come from changing an established practice rather than purchasing new technology.

The lessons from this case study remain relevant as communities, businesses and institutions look for practical ways to reduce landfill dependence. Grass clippings are an abundant form of organic material, and managing them where they are generated can reduce the need for collection and transportation when site conditions and landscaping practices make it appropriate. EPA continues to promote waste diversion through source reduction, recycling, reuse and composting, noting that these approaches can reduce disposal costs and the burden placed on landfills. The Lovell example shows why organic waste deserves attention in sustainability planning: a material that appears disposable can instead become part of a natural nutrient cycle.

Lovell Federal Health Care Center’s cold-composting success offers a compelling lesson in environmental innovation: sometimes the most effective solution is simply to stop treating a useful material as waste. By leaving grass clippings on its extensive grounds, the facility diverted 320 tons of lawn waste and increased overall landfill waste diversion from less than 18% to 39%. The project also produced a practical calculator that helped quantify the results and demonstrated how sustainability initiatives can be measured rather than merely claimed. More than a decade later, the case remains an instructive example for institutions seeking low-cost, practical strategies to reduce waste, conserve resources and make everyday operations more environmentally responsible.