The city of Albany wants to make sure your next eggshell ends up in a compost bin, not the landfill.
Albany Composts is a branch of the city’s Department of General Services that offers composting services to residents.
Residents can opt into a program to receive a backyard compost bin or sign up for a separate program to receive a kitchen scraps bin that can be dropped off at two designated locations: Radix Ecological Sustainability Center on Grand Street and the Friends of Tivoli Lake Preserve and Farm on Wilkins Avenue.
The composting branch also offers residents the option to have their kitchen scraps bin picked up for a monthly fee.
At a press conference outside of the Department of General Services composting site Tuesday, Mayor Kathy Sheehan said the program has helped keep 600 tons of food waste out of the city’s rapidly filling landfill.
“That has allowed us to expand the life of the landfill, it allows us to avoid what happens when that food waste naturally deteriorates and creates methane gas which is a very harmful gas with respect to the emissions,” she said.
The Democrat says she has her own compost bin.
“My backyard composter feeds my raised beds every year and it allows my garden to grow and to thrive, I have a couple of apple trees, so it really is so wonderful to be able to do this in an urban environment,” she said.
Sheehan says the city received a $225,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to start the program in 2019 and then received an additional $200,000 grant in 2023.
Now, the city is looking to expand the program and has applied for a third grant for $200,000.
Frank Zeoli, Deputy Commissioner of the General Services Department, says the city is expanding the program to offer what he calls a compost doctor — a compost specialist to meet with city residents to offer guidance.
“There are sometimes, when it doesn’t actually compost the way, it should our compost doctor program, our compost care program, will be helpful because they’re going to be able to come out and say this is the problem your having I would say add more of this, there’s a smell, add more of this, don’t add this you’re adding the wrong materials in, whatever it may be,” he said.
The program will also provide additional locations for people to drop off their compost.
Zeoli says the program is adding eight additional public compost bins.
“There’s going to be 10 of them total throughout the city, in areas where transportation may be an issue or space may be an issue where you can’t do it in your backyard, so its gonna help us increase our participation and ultimately get more food waste out of people’s houses and out of the landfill,” he said.
People looking to drop off their compost into community bins must sign up online. They’ll get a keycard to access the bins or can open them with an app.
Residents who want to receive a backyard composting bin must watch a video and take a quiz about what should and should not go into composting bins.
Zeoli is hoping to roll out the services expansion this summer.
