Composting food scraps keeps them out of landfills where they  

release methane- a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon. 

 

Food scraps currently make up 14% of what ends up in landfills annually and they cost precious taxpayers dollars to be collected and disposed of.  They're a terrible resource to waste!  Instead of rotting in landfills, our food scraps can be turned into compost that can help restore our depleted top soils.  Properly managed compost does not release methane into the atmosphere. 

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In October of 2023 the the Federal EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) released its report, “Quantifying Methane Emissions From Landfilled Food Waste,” that finds "approximately 58 percent of methane emissions released into the atmosphere from landfills are from food waste, 61 percent of which is not captured, but released into the atmosphere."

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Climate Trace uses state-of-the-art monitoring to highlight climate warming hot spots globally. The maps below demonstrate two large hot spots in our geographic area- they are the Chaffee and Modern landfills where our trash is hauled.  A primary cause of these hot spots is methane gas released from our rotting food waste.  Some methane is diverted into energy by the Chaffee landfill to power their facility. The Modern Landfill by contrast has significantly higher emissions levels. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The solution is to keep food waste out of our landfills. This will also help alleviate the pressure on the decreasing supply of landfill space. 

 

By simply diverting our food scraps from our garbage cans, we can ease our tax burden, enrich our local topsoils, and reduce our climate warming emissions.

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However, not everyone can or wants to have a compost bin in their backyard.  That's why the Town of Aurora in conjunction with the Climate Smart Community Task Force has applied for a grant with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to launch a food scraps collection site .  If approved, town and village residents will be able to voluntarily bring their food scraps to a centrally located "Drop Spot" on Saturday mornings, year-round, from 10am-2pm.  There will be no charge or fee.  The scraps will be transported to the a compost facility to be determined. 

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If approved the grant will also provide free kitchen counter compost buckets for the first 100 residents who sign up. Volunteers from the Task Force, along with other community volunteers, will help at the Drop Spots and Compost Community Education tabling events to help spread the word...  Compost is black gold!