Community composting is the talk of the East End. And it’s not just talk! We’re actually scaling up and starting to compost on a community-wide basis. This is big news!
On Thursday May 11th, Riverhead became the first East End town to kick off the community composting era with a ribbon cutting ceremony at their new facility on Youngs Avenue, where they’ll accept drop-off food scraps from town residents. Riverhead intends to mix the collected food scraps with yard waste to make their own compost. This is the first 100% homegrown solution of its kind on Long Island (as far as we know). in which a town has been forward-looking enough to do something other than burning or burying its food waste.
The Town of Southampton is not far behind and will launch a pilot program this summer. It will run out of their Westhampton Beach transfer station. As in the Riverhead program, Westhampton residents can bring their food scraps to a designated drop-off at the transfer station, where on-premises staff will mix in brown yard waste to create Southampton’s black gold.
ECI will be working with the Town of Southampton to help launch this pilot project. Our primary responsibility will be to recruit and educate Westhampton residents who want to get involved. Pilot participation will initially be limited to 75 households. If you are interested in learning more and would like to join the program, please click here and we’ll get back to you with more information in the next few weeks.
Tony Romano
Joe Lamport