
Two Covered Containers with Information Board Outside of the Community Garden on North Street, on Munjoy Hill.
Today, Earth Day, April 22, the city launched a food scrap pilot program that has been in the works for a year.
The compost drop off sites are in the following locations: North Street Community Garden, Boyd Street Community Garden, Clark Street Community Garden, Libbytown Community Garden and the Riverside Recycling Facility (available during facility operating hours).
Each site has two covered containers for residents to use. Residents are advised to collect food scraps in any airtight container: when full, bring it to one of the collection sites and empty it into one of the containers. The city recommends rinsing the contained before using it again. The collection program will be able to accept many food scraps from a household including fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat and bones.
Since beginning its “Pay as You Throw” trash collection program and curbside recycling in 1999, Portland’s residential waste disposal has fallen over 60%, from over 23,000 tons per year to about 9,300 tons last year. During the same time period, the city’s recycling tonnages have increased from less than 1,000 tons per year to over 5,000 tons per year
The city will share program data with the University of Maine’s Mitchell Center, whose research researchers will help evaluate the environmental and budgetary benefits of food waste collection. The city of Portland’s Sustainability Office will also collaborate with the Mitchell Institute and Maine DEP to promote the Food Recovery Hierachy, which prioritizes reducing the amount of wasted food through careful purchasing, then donating edible food to feed hungry people, feeding animals, composting, and finally disposing of unwanted food in a waste-to-energy plant or landfill.
“When we think about climate change we usually think of solar panels and electric cars, not food waste,” said Troy Moon, Sustainability Director for Portland. “But producing and transporting food that is never eaten accounts for over 6% of global green-house gas emissions every year in more than any single country in the world except for the US and China. In order to tackle climate change, we need to reduce food waste.”