Monroe County and the town of Pittsford are launching a composting test program that has a goal of turning food scraps into an energy source.
Officials expect to launch a series of one-year trial programs in late September, gathering food waste from the kitchens of the county jail and Monroe Community Hospital, and 500 Pittsford residents.
“It's an anaerobic composting program,” said Pittsford town Supervisor Bill Smith. “And that is the ultimate purpose of this, to be able to break down the organic matter, and then the resulting (natural) gas will be used to generate electricity, which then can be sold back to the grid.”
Food scraps – coupled with lawn clippings – account for a quarter of all municipal waste in New York state, records show. A draft plan being considered at the state level aims to greatly reduce those numbers while encouraging programs like this.
The statewide push on reducing organic waste is driving plans for a massive organic waste processing facility being planned in Suffolk County on Long Island. The anaerobic digestor reportedly will be one of the largest in the world, generating enough natural gas to power thousands of homes, while also producing liquid fertilizer and compost.
The city of Rochester launched its own test program for recycling organic waste – mainly food scraps – back in 2021. The program currently has 1,400 participants who last year diverted 81 tons of organics from the city waste stream. That’s up from 1,000 participants and 43 tons the first year.
“This is really our next step going toward zero waste,” said Karen St. Aubin, the city’s operations director.
Program details
The county program has been in development for the past year.
County Executive Adam Bello reached out to Smith about the program back in March, looking to partner with a town, and he referenced Pittsford’s work in this area, Smtih said.
Last fall the state recognized Pittsford as a Climate Smart Community, in part for its program composting food scraps from senior lunches served at the community center. That program produces compost for use in the community garden at Thornell Farm Park.
“My father was an avid composter, and I remember it well,” Smith said. “And that helped inform my judgment about wanting to do this program.”
Want to start composting?
A Composting Resource Fair is planned for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 22, at the Fellow Road Park Shelter on 499 Fellows Road in Fairport. The fair is free and open to all ages.
Pittsford residents would be enrolled on a first-come, first-served basis, and given what Bello described as countertop collection bins.
They would take their scraps at a central collection point, currently planned for the town’s dog park. And the county would contract with a yet-unnamed vendor to collect the material, take it to an anearobic digester and provide regular reports on the amount of food scraps collected, contamination rate, and other matters.
All this awaits approval by the Legislature. And Legislator Susan Hughes-Smith, D-Brighton, has a lot of questions. One is about the size of the program, as the food scraps collected are described as “pre-consumer,” seeming to imply it would not capture what is sent back on jail and hospital food trays.
“I don’t have a sense of really the scale … about what is being collected,” Hughes-Smith said.
She also sees greater value in focusing on composting, which makes greater ecological sense and, she added, “from a climate perspective … we need to be moving away from gas.” But she is quick to add that more information is needed about bio-gas and its potential versus fossil gas.
Gauging support
The city has drop-off locations at Cobbs Hill, Genesee Valley Park, and at the Maplewood Rose Garden. Each has scheduled drop-off times, which are staffed.
“We know what's going in there,” said Karen St. Aubin, the city’s operations director. “We have virtually zero contamination to our food waste, because we're right there is is that containers get dropped off.”
The city and Pittsford both contract with Impact Earth for their composting programs. The city returns compost to its participants.
For now, the city program is limited to residential users. Expanding into food pantries, restaurants and small businesses is the next challenge.
“We have a lot more education, not only in the city, all throughout (the community) on recycling,” she said. “And this is really the next step of recycling. So the more people we get involved in regular recycling, we can branch out to food waste.”
Rochester's program has ended up being a net savings for the city through reduced tipping fees at the landfill.
Details on net costs anticipated for the county and Pittsford program were not immediately available. And the county did not immediately respond to interview requests.
“This is a county funded pilot program,” Smith said. “So there is not a cost to the town for this.”
The plan is to evaluate the program after one year and determine whether to extend or expand it. Smith would one day like to see a town-wide food scrap recycling program.
“But the goal of this more specifically is to gauge the level of public support and willingness to participate,” Smith said.
To that end, Smith said he plans to be among the first in line.
“I support these efforts,” he said. “And just as a general philosophy, I don't like the idea of recommending things to people that I don't do myself. So yes I will be in line to get a bucket.”
