At last: trash pick up for food waste in commercial kitchens in New York City!
New York Composting, (IESI) has a program in place that provides restaurants and hotels with containers for food waste. The kitchens simply put it out on the curb full of food scraps and a collection truck comes by 6 nights a week.
They are even able to take meat scraps, bone and dairy products because of the commercial composting methods used. It is an 8 week process, using long covered rows of known as windrows. When it's finished, the compost is sold to the landscaping and agriculture markets.
They claim the commercial kitchens can save at least 10% over what they are paying for waste and recycling now.
Of course the primary triumph is diverting organic material from the landfill.
As for all the kitchens at home? This company is now coordinating with the restaurants in a few select neighborhoods to become food waste drop off locations for local residents, who get free bio degradable bags and composting buckets to get started!
Perhaps there will be easy ways to compost in cities everywhere soon...and we all begin to see our coffee grinds and eggshells from breakfast as the powerful organic fertilizers they can become in a few weeks.
How inspiring that all the food scraps in NYC can potentially be put to work awakening the soil somewhere...