Composting Collection Starts this Saturday
Help Keep Worthington’s Food Waste out of the Landfill!
Beginning on August 3, we ask that you separate compostable food materials from your regular trash at the Transfer Station. We will have a standard wheeled garbage container between the two trash compactors for this purpose. It will be emptied and washed out once a week. We’re working with Second Chance Composting in Cheshire, MA who will be supplying the Compost Containers, hauling the organic waste and turning it into compost We will also have a container of sawdust next to the compost container and we ask you to throw a couple of scoops of sawdust on top of your organic waste after you dump it, which helps keeps the flies down.
A list of examples of what they’ll take and not take is below, but it’s actually pretty simple. If it’s food, they’ll take it. That includes meat, bones and frozen food you’re throwing out. What they don’t want is any kind of paper or plastic. So take the stickers off your produce. If you’re collecting in a plastic bag, do not throw the bag in with the food. No coffee filters, compostable plates, silverware or anything else that may say it’s compostable. They ONLY TAKE FOOD!
Why are we doing this? First to save money and second to save the planet, or maybe the other way around! Either way, it’s estimated that around 25% of the solid waste in this country is organic and compostable. The solid waste (garbage bags full of trash) you throw in the compactor get hauled to Springfield and then to South Carolina where they end up in a landfill. Not only is it absurd to haul compostable food waste to be buried a few thousand miles away, it’s also incredibly wasteful. The biggest expense in disposing of what you leave at the transfer station is the hauling. Drivers, trucks, fuel… That’s the expense. So every pound we keep out of that waste stream is a big savings. Hauling organic waste to Cheshire where it’s turned into high-quality compost is kind of a no brainer.
Of course, many of us compost at home. We’ve offered Earth Machine Composters at a discounted price and many have taken advantage of that. The question is, what percentage of the trash in our waste stream is compostable materials? Williamsburg just started this month and they are already generating 2 containers a week. So we’ll try it for six months and we’ll see whether it’s worthwhile for Worthington.
We hope you’ll please try to begin separating out any food materials from your trash, if you’re not already doing that. Use whatever container you’d like. They make compost buckets you can purchase and, if there’s interest, we can look into a bulk purchase. Any kind of container or bucket with a lid works. Just remember if you’re lining it with some kind of bag, you can’t throw the bag itself into the compostable container at the transfer station. Some people freeze things until they’re ready to toss them, and it’s fine if you want to bring frozen food, but again do not throw any plastic bags in the compost container.
