A more than $72,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will help turn western Connecticut’s food trash into treasure by improving composting practices across the region. The award is part of a nearly $2 million investment from the USDA to develop and implement municipal compost plans and food-waste reduction strategies nationwide. The federal dollars will support the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority in managing food waste locally and establishing a closed-loop composting system at the Ridgefield Recycling Center.
Residents currently bring their food scraps to the center to be transported to a local commercial processor, and the compost is returned in the spring. The grant will be used to build a solar-operated aerated static pile composting system on site, reducing costs and the carbon footprint, HRRA’s Executive Director Jennifer Heaton-Jones said.
“Food waste makes up 30 percent of our waste stream, and we have a waste crisis here in the state of Connecticut,” she said. “We produce more solid waste than we can … dispose of. We don’t have enough landfill capacity because they’ve all closed, and we don’t have enough waste-to-energy plants because they are dying — this is a solution.”