Compost effort gains ground in East Hampton with pilot program

Turning food scraps into compost can be a messy gig.

On Saturday mornings, volunteers with East Hampton Compost collect buckets of discarded vegetables, fruit, potato peels and corn husks from local residents as part of a new collaborative pilot program to reduce food waste, create nutrient-rich soil and educate residents on how to minimize their carbon footprints.

Before donated scraps can be hauled to a nearby recycling center, volunteers use one hand to dig through each pile looking for twist-ties, stickers, rubber bands, pits, pasta or any other contaminants.

They keep the other hand gloveless to "take down the data," said program founder Gloria Frazee.

“Not only are we teaching people, the community, how to do this composting, we're also showing the town that we can deliver clean compost,” she said.

Approximately one-third of food produced in the country is never eaten, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency established a national goal in 2015 in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to halve food loss and waste by 2030. Food waste is the most common material in landfills, according to the EPA.

Frazee, a member of East Hampton Town’s energy and sustainability committee, said she’s been leading a subcommittee focused on compost and food waste. The pilot program began in July and runs through September.

The collaboration involves East Hampton Town and ReWild Long Island — a nonprofit that promotes sustainability practices — along with other groups and local schools. 

East Hampton Compost has collected nearly 700 pounds of food scraps over the first four weeks of the program at farmers markets in Springs and Sag Harbor, Frazee said. The program grew from 13 participants donating a total of 56 pounds in week one to 41 drop-offs totaling 274 pounds in week four.

The goal, she said, is to grow the operation.

“Soil is just so crazy important to our lives,” Frazee added.

East Hampton Councilwoman Cate Rogers, who acts as liaison to the town's energy and sustainability committee, called the pilot program a “huge success.”

Craig Fick, a crew leader with East Hampton Sanitation Department, said the town's recycling facility already creates compost from leaves and grass. The food scraps from the pilot program are mixed in through a process called windrow composting where rows of organic waste are formed into long piles that are frequently flipped to avoid odor.

He said adding in food scraps has been seamless and hasn’t added costs.

The program caught the attention of Tabatha Hirsch, a Montauk summer resident who attends Brown University. Hirsch, 21, has spent the summer at The Surf Lodge restaurant in Montauk working on sustainability and finding ways the business can reduce its carbon footprint.

The employee organized a trial run of program participation on Aug. 3, when the restaurant collected food scraps from a dinner event in a coordinated effort between the kitchen and wait staffs.

The prep process alone generated nearly 10 pounds of carrot peels, she said, and they saved about 55 pounds of food scraps in all that were donated to the program.

“It makes such a difference in both the methane reduction and restoring nutrients into the food we eat,” Hirsch said, adding that the process also reduces restaurant trash collection costs.

By Joe Werkmeister

joe.werkmeister@newsday.com

Joe Werkmeister covers the towns of Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and previously worked as the editor of two North Fork community newspapers.

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