Serving 13 of the 19 transfer stations in Franklin County, the Solid Waste Management District’s Food Waste Compost program allows people to bring food waste to their local transfer station, where it will be composted, free of charge. In the last few months alone, the district has added Dumpsters and bins at the Charlemont/Shelburne transfer station, Warwick’s station and has restarted service at Conway’s transfer station, which had its service indefinitely paused in August 2021.
The program’s scope also goes beyond what residents could compost in their own households because certain types of waste can only be processed by a commercial composting operation. These items, which transfer stations accept, include “meat, bones, cheese, paper products and other materials that are not appropriate for home compost bins or piles,” according to a notice put out by the district.
“Their programs are really important because everything we can keep out of the trash saves money for the town and saves a lot of emissions from transporting trash long distances,” said Amy Donovan, the waste management district’s program coordinator. “We would much rather have compostable food and paper weight be composted locally at Martin’s Farm in Greenfield or Clear View Composting in Orange than be sent via a train to a landfill in the Carolinas.”