Commercial Organics Recycling at Work

August 13, 2013

This article continues our Organics Blog Series with a look at towns, solid waste districts, and private entities promoting commercial organics recycling.

Commercial organics diversion presents another low cost organics management opportunity for rural and small towns, particularly offering a focus on diversion of food scraps. Towns, counties, and solid waste districts can provide leadership and assistance in working with haulers and organics processors to capture commercially generated food scraps, soiled paper, and other organics for composting.

Who’s Doing It?

• Morristown is the largest town in Lamoille County, Vermont (population 5,139). The population for this rural county is 24,475, with a population density of only 50 people per square mile. Close the Loop Lamoille Valley! is a partnership between the Highfields Center for Composting, the Lamoille Regional Solid Waste Management District, local composters, and area businesses to recycle food scraps through composting.
• The Town of Carrabassett Valley (population 761) and Sugarloaf Ski and Golf Resort, in Franklin County, Maine, implemented a comprehensive composting program that captures both pre- and post-consumer food waste from the Resort and most of the area’s restaurants. The resort uses the in-vessel Earth Tub system for composting. The resulting compost is used on the Sugarloaf Golf Course and throughout the community in public gardens.
• REPLENISH collaborates with haulers and composters who reclaim organic table scraps from restaurants and then recycle this material back to farmers through the creation of compost. The compost fertilizes the produce that goes back to the restaurants. As a demonstration project of EDEN Delmarva, REPLENISH promotes the recovery of organic materials from restaurants in Rehoboth Beach in Sussex County, Delaware (population 1,327) for the creation of compost and soil additives that help serve local farmers with their crops.
• Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District provides free training, instructional signs for work spaces, free advertising and promotion, free hauling of food scraps for the first month, and free 48-gallon totes for food scrap collection as an incentive to promote commercial organics composting.
• Chittenden Solid Waste District serves 18 towns in Chittenden County, Vermont (population 156,545; population density 272 people per square mile). The District provides hands-on technical assistance and free tools to help schools and businesses around Chittenden County in separating food scraps for composting. Assistance is provided to set-up food scrap composting onsite or to have organics transported by a local hauler to the District’s Green Mountain Compost facility. There are five private haulers that collect food waste from schools, businesses and other institutions in Chittenden County.
• Ulster County is located in the Mid-Hudson Valley Region of New York State (population182,493; population density 158 people per square mile). The County has 24 municipalities: 3 villages, 20 towns, and one city (population 23,893). Historically, the municipalities of Ulster County were individually responsible for managing solid waste, and there was no coordinated countywide system for solid waste management. The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency  (UCRRA) is a public benefit corporation which was formed for the purpose of developing, financing, and implementing a comprehensive countywide solid waste management program. UCRRA opened a composting facility in 2012 to manage yard waste, food scraps, and other organics generated in the county. There is a $50 per ton fee for the Agency’s program for organics which is half of the $100 per ton municipal solid waste fee. The facility uses an aerated static pile method of composting. The facility is currently accepting food waste from large supermarkets, grocers, and restaurants around the county.