- By Geoff Dunn
- Business & Technology
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The County's Department of Recycling and Materials Management was awarded a $355,000 New York Department of Environmental Conservation Climate Smart Communities grant to help fund the project to transfer source-separated commercial food scraps for composting.
The grant – announced in 2017- will support the replacement of an existing storage building at the RSWC with a pre-fabricated metal building designed to accept food waste, and help Tompkins County reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The total cost of the project is just over $436,000.
"We fully expect the food scraps transfer building to be operational this fall," said Barbara Eckstrom, the County's Director of Recycling and Materials Management. "We're excited to be taking this next logical step in our food scraps recycling program."
Tompkins County and Cayuga Compost of Trumansburg have partnered for several years on a program to divert food scraps from the landfill and create a nutrient-rich soil amendment. "Having a centralized transfer building to accept commercial food scraps at our facility in Ithaca will serve to encourage further diversion efforts," said Eckstrom.
The construction project is not expected to affect daily operations at the Recycling and Solid Waste Center.
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