Looking to get ahead of the curve on the next environmental trend, the Yorktown Town Board at its March 16 meeting agreed to participate in Westchester County’s Residential Food Scrap Transportation and Disposal Program. “Food-waste recycling now is where curbside recycling was in the early ’90s,” said Louis Vitrone, deputy commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Environmental Facilities.
As part of the program, Yorktown will install a food-scrap drop-off box in the lower parking lot at Downing Park. Residents will be able to buy large garbage pales—known as toters—on their own or through the town. Once the toters are full, they can be emptied into the Downing Park drop-off box. Once a week, the county’s contractor, Suburban Carting, will pick up the contents of the box and bring it to a composting yard.
The cost of recycling food waste is equal to what the town pays for solid waste, which is currently around $30 per ton. The price “escalates in line with the solid-waste amount,” explained Melissa-Jean Rotini, the county’s director of environmental management operations. “So, it is essentially a net zero. It’s not costing you any more than if you had it thrown in the garbage.”