Ridgefield Food Waste Composting Program
Are you interested in separating your food scraps from your trash so it can be made into compost, but don’t want to do it in your backyard?
Now you can participate in the Free Ridgefield food waste drop-off program!
Learn how it works and sign up HERE.
Why Should You Compost?
Separating your food scraps for compost is easy and provides many benefits, including:
- Saving you money when you reduce the amount of trash your hauler needs to collect or the number of times you need to visit the transfer station.
- Food waste on average makes up 24% of the waste stream and is often the heaviest material in your trash, reducing the weight by composting will also save you money.
- Reducing carbon-dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. A Princeton University Study found that composting organic waste versus landfilling can reduce more than 50% of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, for a total of 2.1 gigatons between now (2020) and 2050 .
- Creating a unique soil amendment because of its ability to hold moisture and soluble minerals. Composted organics are beneficial, because they:
- Maximize plant growth.
- Reconstruction of wetlands.
- Help with storm water management.
- Reduces the need for fertilizers.
- Reduces the need for pesticides.
- Improves the overall health of soil.
Other Ways RACE and HRRA Can Help You to Reduce Food Waste
RACE and HRRA Staff will participate in in-school presentations or virtual, to teach students in grades K-12 the importance of preventing food waste and promoting food donations to local churches, food pantries and community shelters.
In addition, the group will partner with local farmers to introduce them to food hubs for produce that otherwise would not sell in their stands or retail orders. The HRRA will partner with local farms to provide assistance with networking and encourage other farms to donate unwanted produce that otherwise will be wasted. The HRRA would like to provide collection boxes for the produce to be transported to local community drop sites such as churches, food pantries and shelters. The boxes are intended to be reused as often as possible. We want to remove any barriers for collection and transportation of the material. Contact HRRA if you would like to know more.