Making compost takes some care - add greens, browns, water and air. This simple rhyme is a great way to remember the key ingredients to any compost pile.
This week, millions of people are celebrating International Compost Awareness Week, an event that brings communities together in the United States and around the world to celebrate composting. This year’s theme is Compost! Feed the Soil that Feeds Us.
Composting is a way to enhance the natural decomposition of organics, such as yard trimmings and food scraps. Microorganisms and invertebrates, like bacteria and worms, break down this material into compost, a nutrient-rich soil amendment that can be added to your yard, gardens, flower beds, and potted plants.
Many New Yorkers have turned to composting to reduce their environmental impact by recycling food scraps at home in a composting bin or using a local drop-off or collection program. At the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, our dedicated team of organics reduction and recycling staff in the Division of Materials Management are promoting opportunities for New Yorkers looking to start composting at home or through programs in their local community.
In New York State, wasted food makes up approximately 17% of what is thrown away. Food waste, which includes edible food that is unnecessarily thrown away, and food scraps like food leftovers on your plate when you go out to eat or peels and trimmings from cooking, can end up in landfills, creating greenhouse gases that significantly contribute to climate change.
Here’s a shocking statistic: more than 140 billion pounds of surplus food is generated in the U.S. each year. This includes food that goes unsold, unused or uneaten. That’s 29 percent of the food supply in America. For an individual person, that’s like buying three bags of groceries at your local supermarket but leaving one bag in the parking lot before going home.
When we waste food, we also waste the resources that went into growing, harvesting and transporting the food to local supermarkets and our homes. It’s important that we value the food that is grown by farmers in New York State and beyond.
Significant progress has been made statewide on diverting food scraps, yard trimmings, and other organic materials away from landfills and instead recycle them into a beneficial product, like compost. Food scraps are recycled across New York State through composting, anaerobic digestion and other technologies.
It’s not just food scraps where New York State is making progress on reducing waste and greenhouse gas pollution from wasted food. Thanks to the Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law implemented under Governor Kathy Hochul, more than 96 million pounds of food has been donated to hungry New Yorkers since 2021 through a program administered by Feeding New York State and funded by the Department of Environmental Conservation. Feeding New York State works directly with businesses to assist them with starting or expanding their food donation program.
These are numbers we can all be proud of, but actions are needed at every level to reduce wasted food and help everyday New Yorkers save money. This includes using the food in your fridge, freezer and pantry before you go grocery shopping, using a shopping list to stay focused on what foods you truly need, and knowing how to properly store your food to make it last the longest. Some easy tips? Wait to wash cherries, berries and grapes until you’re ready to eat them, and store onions and potatoes separately to prevent sprouting.
One of the common composting misconceptions we hear is the only way to participate is if you compost in your backyard. Backyard composting often gets all of the attention and is a popular option for those with outdoor space to accommodate it. When I bought my home, one of the first things I did was build a compost bin. But there are a number of ways to get involved in composting, even if you live in an apartment or property without a yard.
There’s indoor vermicomposting, otherwise known as composting with worms. You can also collect your food scraps and drop them off at a local food scraps drop-off program in your neighborhood or community. Depending on where you live, food scraps can be picked up through a residential curbside collection program. You can also purchase compost from a local composting facility or at your local garden center or hardware store.
We recognize that no matter how much we try, there will always be food scraps that need to be taken care of. We want to see composting grow at every level and in every community. Thanks to more than $8 million in grant funding provided through the State’s Environmental Protection Fund to help start or expand municipal food scraps recycling programs, now more than ever, composting is something everyone can participate in, no matter where you live.
If you are looking to learn more about home composting, visit the DEC website and search “Home Composting”. There you will find our home composting guide which will walk you through all you need to know to start composting at home or explore other local options.
Kristine Ellsworth is an environmental engineer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Materials Management. If you have any questions about composting, contact the DEC’s Organics and Recycling Section at organicrecycling@dec.ny.gov
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.