Table scraps welcome in Southold as town starts accepting food waste 

Gathered around a compost bin, Southold residents took turns dumping cracked eggshells, garlic skins, spent coffee grounds and Brussels sprout stalks into a pile at the town's waste transfer station.

The enthusiastic composters on Friday were among the first to take part in a new pilot program intended to divert food waste from landfills. The idea is to transform the scraps into nutrient-dense compost that can be used by community members. Composting food scraps can reduce methane emissions that are a byproduct of traditional waste streams and improve soil health, town and environmental officials said.

Riverhead is the only other Long Island town with a municipal food scrap drop off program, which launched in 2022. The lack of food composting programs on Long Island is a source of consternation among many conservation-minded residents, Newsday has reported.

In landfills, food scraps decay without oxygen and instead produce methane, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which lists food scrap recycling as a way to confront climate change.

Friday’s ribbon cutting formally kicked off the program spearheaded by Southold Town, the nonprofit North Fork Environmental Council and Long Island Organics Council. The project is operating with a $15,000 grant from the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute.

“We’re trying to pull food waste out of the municipal solid waste,” Nick Krupski, the town's solid waste coordinator, said Friday. Up to 30% of household waste in Southold is food, which gets trucked to an incinerator in Babylon.

That estimate equals about six tons of food waste per day in the town of 23,732 residents.

Food waste accounted for 58% of methane emissions from solid waste landfills nationwide in 2020, roughly the same emissions as 15 coal power plants, according to the EPA.

Changing attitudes

The term “waste” is a bit of a misnomer, since food scraps have environmental benefits when composted, said Krupski. In his family, food scraps are fed to their chickens at their family farm in Peconic —  Krupski Farms — which his father, Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski, owns and operates.

“Chickens are an awesome way to compost because you’re taking something that would otherwise be landfilled or incinerated ... and they’re giving you back the most nutritious source of protein,” he said. 

For residents who don’t have the space for chickens or ability to start a backyard compost barrel, Krupski said municipal programs are a good starting point. “This is just the beginning of effecting a change on Long Island,” he said Friday. 

Francesca Greco, a project coordinator for the Long Island Organics Council, said when people collect food scraps, they start to consider their behavior. “They’re thinking about consumption," Greco said. "They’re thinking ‘Oh man, I really wasted all those apples last week, I didn’t make my apple pie. Maybe I could cut back next time.’”

For now, Southold’s pilot program is limited to 100 households. Residents can drop off food scraps to the town dump, where they're mixed with other organic material such as leaves and manure and converted into compost. The town makes compost available to residents at no charge, at up to 500 pounds per year. Eligible residents must enroll into the program before dropping off their food waste.

Southold accepts items including fruits and vegetables, grains, eggshells, coffee grounds and loose tea, snacks, seeds and cut flowers. Meat, dairy products, oils, pet and yard waste are not permitted, Krupski said.

A template for LI

Mark Haubner, president of the North Fork Environmental Council, said he hopes the pilot project can be a template for other towns.

“It’s a change in mind about food scraps,” Haubner, an Aquebogue resident, said.

The environmental organizations helped launch a similar effort in Riverhead in 2022. In an interview Friday, Riverhead town engineer Drew Dillingham said the program has been “a big help” in diverting waste from incinerators.

Dillingham said all seven Riverhead public schools are participating in the program and 115 residents have enrolled.

When food scraps decompose, beneficial nutrients are released and returned to the soil. “Composting is one of the best things you can do from an organic standpoint,” Greco said. “It allows aeration in the soils; it feeds good bacteria and microorganisms into the soils and helps improve plant health,” Greco said.

On the East End, compost is a desirable commodity among gardeners and landscapers alike. It’s what Nancy DePas Reinertsen of Southold has used to expand her garden from two to 10 raised beds. She said the organic material has helped the garden thrive.

Reinertsen, 66, encourages her neighbors to save their scraps. “This is what’s going to help the soil health,” she said. “We would love to have better soils, better gardens, and more flowers.”