Gritty Blend

Gritty is a 2 Quart blend of the following:
– Compost made from Philadelphia’s food scraps
– Crushed glass from bottles collected throughout the city
– Biochar

Gritty is a soil blend specifically for growing cacti and succulents. The blend is made using BU recycled glass sand, compost from Bennett Compost and biochar. Not only is it beautiful (and a conversation starter!), but all of its components are byproducts of a recycling process.

Our Recycled Glass Sand component is made from crushed bottles and jars and we promise it’s soft to the touch!

Background:

Bennett Compost and Remark Glass/Bottle Underground came together in 2021 as collaborators on a project spearheaded by OLIN Studios using crushed glass and food compost as components of a soil blend.  Circular Soil was used alongside traditional soil mediums via several plantings throughout Philadelphia to test its validity.

In 2024 this blend was commissioned by The University of Pennsylvania for street tree plantings. Bennett Compost provided the compost as well as the soil blending and began talking with Bottle Underground about making a separate blend using our products (glass and compost) that could be sold to a Philadelphia grower.  Gritty was born!