KEESEVILLE — Each year, Americans discard 120 billion pounds of food scraps. That’s 325 pounds per person, or about 40% of the total waste stream.
Packed into landfills, these food scraps generate greenhouse gasses as they slowly decompose. The same food scraps, when processed through a composting facility, regenerate as materials that improve soil health, reduce erosion, reduce the amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers required and improve water quality. This is the power of composting.
In the North Country, over $200,0000 of funding from two USDA Rural Business Development Grants (RBDG) is fueling AdkAction’s Compost for Good (CfG) project to support a robust and growing network of community scale composting businesses, including scale compost site operators and food scraps transporters across St. Lawrence, Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties.
With this funding, CfG and its fiscal partner AdkAction supported the construction of two 20’x4’ rotating drum composters that were awarded to two North Country sites through a competitive application process. The first composter was won by the Towns of Newcomb and Minerva who will begin collecting food scraps from the community in partnership starting this Spring. The second composter was won by Ben Wever Farm in Willsboro.
“The grant of a drum composter is a game-changer for our farm’s waste management practices, aligning seamlessly with our commitment to sustainability,” said Pierre-Luc Gelineau, manager of Ben Wever Farm.