This Car-Free Michigan Island Is Leading on Composting

On a hot July day on Michigan’s vehicle-free Mackinac Island, people swarm the downtown streets on foot and bikes and in horse-drawn carriages. Sitting high atop a cart emblazoned with the mission of “Keeping Mackinac Beautiful,” a city sanitation worker maneuvers a two-horse team through the fray, stopping periodically to collect trash and compost.

This iconic Great Lakes vacation spot has been running a composting program since the 1990s. Tourists often stop to gawk at the novelty of a horse-drawn garbage cart—and many look no further than that. But a closer look reveals far more than a gimmick: Mackinac’s system of small-town composting has been in place for decades and now thrives despite its limitations.

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