Americans discard millions of tons of food every year, not only wasting the resources it took to produce and transport that food but also contributing to climate change. In a landfill, food waste produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting keeps food scraps out of landfills and turns them into a nutrient-rich soil amendment.
LISTEN to the story
At Pittsburgh farmers markets, residents can not only buy fresh fruits, veggies, and hand-crafted gifts, they can also drop off their food scraps. The city’s four farmers markets have buckets for collecting food waste for composting.
James Longanecker, manager of CitiParks farmers markets, said it made sense to offer composting.
“Farmers are here, people are here. If they had scraps that they knew they weren’t going to use before they rot, they can put them here,” she said. “[We] also wanted to have some sort of outlet for [food] waste in the city.”
Any vegetable scraps like peelings, tops of carrots or wilting lettuce can go into the 20-gallon buckets at the CitiParks’ neon green tents – but no dairy or meat products.
- Composting and feeding food waste to animals have big climate benefits, study finds
- What can one person do about climate change? The food we (don’t) eat
Longanecker said composting at the farmers markets has become popular.
“It has grown so much since the start of this season,” she said. “We’ve doubled the number of buckets that we’ve been able to do. So we’re up to about eight buckets a week.”
The food waste goes to Worm Return, a local residential and commercial composting service, with three composting sites in the city. Laura Totin Codori, the company’s founder and CEO, said it takes about four to six weeks for the food waste to break down into what she calls a “mostly digested material.”
“Then what comes through the sifter, the digested material will then age for anywhere from six to nine months, and then it’s ready to go on the ground,” she said.
The nutrient-rich compost can be used by community gardens, a service Codori would like to expand. But she has a loftier goal: “To make the entire city of Pittsburgh a city that composts, so that we don’t have any food garbage going to landfills,” she said.
The hassle of saving your food scraps and then dropping them off at market, it’s a small one. It makes a big difference from an ecological perspective.”
– James Longanecker
Composting connects people to the idea of cradle-to-cradle design, said Longanecker. “When we have decomposing food, it can give life to the next round of food.”
Longanecker recommends freezing food waste that you collect throughout the week.
“The hassle of saving your food scraps and then dropping them off at market, it’s a small one,” she said. “It makes a big difference from an ecological perspective.”
Food waste is collected at all four CitiParks farmers markets: East End market in East Liberty on Mondays, Carrick on Wednesdays, Northside on Fridays and Squirrel Hill on Sundays. A full schedule can be found here.
