Even as one system reaches the end of its lifecycle, composting activists on-Island are envisioning a bright future for local organic waste management.
Oak Bluffs is pursuing $2 million in grant funding to start a food composting service at the town’s transfer station.
The select board voted Tuesday to submit a proposal to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday for a composting facility that could process as much as 2,080 tons of food waste a year, cutting down on the amount of scraps that get shipped off Island.
Central composting facilities and a variety of community initiatives are among the final recommendations of an Islandwide food waste study that wraps up this month.
A four-month pilot study, which began in June, may set the stage for an Islandwide composting program that could help businesses comply with the state’s ban on commercial food waste.
Every year, 40 per cent of the food grown in this country is never eaten. The waste happens in farm fields, during processing and transportation, in grocery stores, restaurants, and in our homes.
Massachusetts has become the first state in the nation to put a ban on commercial food waste entering landfills. Larger businesses on the Vineyard are preparing for the changes, and businesses and residents are feeling the need for more composting regulations.
While the Martha's Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource
Recovery District committee negotiates costs, facility capacity and
logistics with the Rhode Island-based Waste Options company to build a
composting facility on the Island, many Islanders seek answers to more
basic questions.
Coffee grinds, apple cores and curly orange carrot peels: straight to the trash they go in most households. But on Island farms, these food scraps (along with egg shells, wilted greens and watermelon seeds) go to the compost. For the farmers, this trash is treasure.
“It’s like crop insurance,” explained Jim Athearn of Morning Glory Farm last week as he stepped down from his tractor.
