A pilot program that aimed to curb the food waste that makes up 40 percent of Grand Teton National Park’s total waste was deemed successful after its first season.

From May through October, 73.3 tons of food waste was diverted from the landfill to a composting facility in West Yellowstone, Montana. The work was a partnership between nine entities including Teton park, Teton County Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling and park concessionaires.

While the project didn’t meet the goal of 150 tons, it was still hailed as successful in tonnage and knowledge, said Mari Allan Hanna, the waste diversion and outreach coordinator at Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling.

“We knew it would be worthwhile,” she said. “We knew we’d learn a lot.”

The pilot was an opportunity to test the logistics of a large-scale food composting collection service, which is likely to guide future compost operations — something Teton County is likely to see within the next four years, she said.

A Lot of Heavy Leftovers

The program is a part of the “Road to Zero Waste,” a community commitment aiming to divert 60 percent of the community’s waste from landfills by 2030. Teton County and the Town of Jackson signed on to the goal in 2014.

Grand Teton’s redirected food was spared the 100-mile trip to the Bonneville County, Idaho, landfill, a trek that costs $115 a ton for transport. Instead, the waste was turned into compost useful in mine reclamation and road projects within Yellowstone National Park.

Hanna said it’s important to note the heft of waste food in the program, which weighed over two times as much as regular mixed restaurant garbage. The program waste weighed an average of 595 pounds compared to an average 250 to 300 pounds per yard of regular garbage.

“It’s measurably heavier, even in the small bin,” she said. “For a staff member to carry a trashcan full of food waste is a lot heavier than the regular trash bin that has some paper and mixed stuff in there.”

Grand Teton National Park was selected as one of the three pilot parks in Subaru’s Zero Landfill Initiative and has been working toward zero waste for the past two years. The initiative is a partnership between Subaru, the National Park Service, and the National Parks Conservation Association.

Each partner in the program played an integral role in the success of the pilot, from the restaurants to the truck drivers and the composters. And with the success came challenges to improve the effort.

Kitchens Make it Happen

Restaurant concessionaires at Signal Mountain Lodge and Grand Teton Lodge Company served as ground zero for the pilot.

At Signal Mountain Lodge it all started at the cutting board. Potato peels, carrot tops, meat scraps and lettuce ends were tossed into a green composting bin instead of a garbage can. Expired foods and uneaten meals joined the scraps in the green bin.

“It was a lot of extra work getting it going,” said Erik Kimball, food and beverage director for Signal Mountain Lodge. “But once it was set up it was kind of routine.”

It was a rhythm Signal Mountain Lodge and its sister restaurant, Leeks Marina Pizzeria, had been hoping to get going for several years.

“We were a little jump ahead because we had thought through a lot of the challenges and we had a couple studies and a couple false starts,” he said.

To read the full story, visit http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/features/program-diverts-tons-of-food-waste-from-landfills/article_a0ac6821-9710-55f4-97d7-b580359c2416.html.

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