Food Waste Diversion & Composting
This committee is focused on reducing the amount of food waste that ends up in the landfill
Our mission
The mission of the Color Fairport Green Food Waste Diversion & Composting team is to place the Town of Perinton at the forefront of sustainability by promoting education and guidance on backyard composting, diverting all food waste, and providing municipal composting options to all Perinton residents and businesses.
This team is committed to:
-
Diverting all local and NYC food waste from entering the High Acres Landfill.
-
Providing large scale, cost effective composting options to all Perinton residents and local businesses.
-
Finding ways to process all food waste locally.
-
Giving Perinton residents easy access to the soil enriching compost created.
-
Encouraging the Town of Perinton and Village of Fairport to satisfy their obligation to support these efforts.
-
Educating the community on ways to reduce food waste.
This work will involve engaging with stakeholders and community leaders, identifying potential funding, and creating a pilot program proposal for presentation to the Town Board. We need people who are effective communicators, may have grant writing experience, and/or are passionate about reducing food waste and eliminating all organics from our landfill.
How does reducing & composting food waste help with climate change?
It's about emissions
Less food waste in the trash
means less methane
in the atmosphere.
Organic waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. By composting wasted food and other organics instead of putting them in the trash, these methane emissions are significantly reduced.
Current status of local composting services
An early CFG effort to encourage local leaders to consider municipal composting:
One of Color Fairport Green's first initiatives was to convince our elected officials to implement municipal composting. We launched a communication campaign in February 2021 to appeal to our village and town boards.
Collectively, CFG reached out to our elected officials over 78 times, making phone calls, sending emails and letters.
The Village Board responded to our call and implemented a municipal composting pilot program called Fairport Collectively Composting in October 2021 for all village residents.
Learn more about the importance of
food waste reduction, organics diversion, and composting
We believe in proposing solutions that are informed, based in science, and minimize negative impacts while maximizing positive impacts. In proposing municipal composting for Fairport and Perinton, here are some resources we think will help our community understand and feel confident that municipal composting is important!
Step 1 - Waste less food in the first place!
Get smart about household food waste
Try to buy only what you will eat. If you won't be able to eat what you have, try to share it with others, or freeze it for later use.
Even understanding date labeling on foods (i.e., "best by", "sell by", "use by", etc.) can be helpful for extending the life of what's in your fridge.
From the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Learn about 'food recovery'
From the EPA - The Food Recovery Hierarchy prioritizes actions organizations can take to prevent and divert wasted food. Each tier focuses on different management strategies for your wasted food.
The top levels of the hierarchy are the best ways to prevent and divert wasted food, because they create the most benefits for the environment, society and the economy.
From the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Step 2: Convert food waste into nourishment for the soil (compost)
Why compost?
-
Compost Impacts More Than You Think (infographic)
-
Basics and Benefits of Composting from Cornell Cooperative Extension
-
New York State Food Donations and Food Scraps Recycling Law (passed in 2019) will require businesses to properly deal with their food waste. Learn more about how the rules are changing - for the better!
-
Compost for Climate Change - Dale Overton, TEDxUManitoba
How to compost at home
-
Composting At Home (from the EPA)
-
Composting for Beginners (from Better Homes and Gardens)
-
Beginner's Guide to Composting (video from The Nelson City Council, New Zealand)
Step 3 - Keep learning & sharing info with the community
Celebrate
International Compost Awareness Week
May 7-13, 2023
International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) is celebrated nationwide and in other countries each year during the first full week of May. The goal of ICAW is to work together to raise public awareness on why we all should be composting our organics recycling and using compost.
Watch or Read
"Kiss the Ground" Documentary
"The solution is right under our feet"
Kiss the Ground is a documentary (and book) about regenerative practices that nourish the soil and promote the surrounding ecosystems. Whether living in an apartment, or growing your farm, everyone can garden regeneratively!
What's next for this committee?
There is still work to be done!
Perinton residents who live outside of the village do not have the benefit of a drop-off composting program. We need the Town Board to implement this change for all of us. Color Fairport Green would like to see composting and food waste reduction strategies implemented all over our community and accessible for all.
~ Imagine a Perinton where restaurants have an easy way to divert food scraps.
~ Imagine a Perinton where homeowners with space to compost at home have all the support to do so.
~ Imagine a Perinton where people appreciate the resources involved in growing, transporting, and preparing food.
~ Imagine a Perinton where the loop of food growth and consumption is closed and food scraps are returned to our soil to foster new growth.
What do you imagine for Fairport, Perinton, and beyond?
Please keep this conversation going with your friends and neighbors. Any changes the local governments try to make will only work with understanding and support of the residents. We need to keep educating.
Contact us to join this effort!
Be an agent of change - speak up!
.png)
Don't you think it would be awesome to have a large-scale compost facility within Monroe County instead of using fossil fuels to haul our food scraps to nearby counties for processing? Let County Executive Adam Bello know! Why throw this resource in the landfill where it will create methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide? With the proper facilities in our county, we could compost our food scraps, use them to replenish our soil, and create jobs in one fell swoop.
Tell our County Executive that we need to build no fewer than 2 compost facilities in Monroe County. Let us know you sent him a message and ask a friend to do the same!
Write to:
Monroe County Executive Adam Bello
110 County Office Building
39 W. Main St., Rochester, NY 14614
Phone: 585 753-1000
