Tired of those greasy table scraps smelling up your beloved kitchen? Well, the Scarsdale Forum Sustainability Committee (SFSC) has hatched a new plan to dispatch the unsightly and malodorous mess. The Food-Scrap Recycling Program was started by Ron Schulhof and Michelle Sterling in January, and it’s the first of its kind in the county. This new program allows Scarsdale residents to recycle their food scraps and other compostable products (e.g., paper towels, napkins, etc.) in a way that is beneficial to the environment. In eight short months, the program already has a 15 percent participation rate, with more than 700 Scarsdale homes yielding approximately two tons of compost per week.
Participating residents collect their compostable materials in containers and compostable bags provided by the town. At their leisure, they can bring them to the Scarsdale Recycling Center, where they are collected once a week by a private contractor and deposited with a composting plant in Connecticut (Westchester currently lacks such a plant).
“We are always working to move forward, to make our community more educated in the ways of sustainability,” says Ellie Month, a member of the SFSC.
As the first organization of its kind in Westchester, the members of the SFSC see it as a pilot program for other towns to emulate. In fact, Month adds, residents and officials of other municipalities have begun to reach out to the SFSC to learn how they can get started.
In the future, the SFSC hopes to provide Scarsdale residents with curbside pickup for their food scraps and eventually spark the creation of a compost facility in Westchester.
For more information about the Scarsdale composting program, write to composting@scarsdale.com.