JACKSON, Wyo. — Teton County Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling (ISWR) plans to work closely with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Town of Jackson and the Teton County Conservation District to launch a robust education and outreach campaign about allowable food waste diversion to increase commercial and residential participation in their food waste collection programs.
Picture this: It’s a Saturday afternoon, you just got off the mountain from an epic powder day with the family, you’re wrangling up the kids to get ready to head to a local hockey game and everyone is absolutely famished! You scramble to pull something together for dinner and deep in the back of your fridge, you find a container of stuffed peppers. Very old stuffed peppers. You groan and do what millions of Americans do every day, without a second thought, and you scrape the rotten food into the garbage.
Many people believe that food waste isn’t as significant as other waste because it eventually decomposes in the landfill, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Landfills lack the oxygen needed for food to properly decompose and create ‘mummified food’, and foods that do eventually break down generate methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.
In 2022, ISWR conducted a Waste Characterization Study at both the Trash Transfer Station and Recycling Center. The department assumed large amounts of food were being disposed of in the trash, but the amount of food found being landfilled couldn’t be ignored. The study results showcased that food waste constituted 16 percent of the total Transfer Station waste, about 3,662 tons annually sent to landfill. That’s about twenty times as heavy as a 1,600 square foot house!
The Teton County food waste program is relatively simple – food waste only. Stickers, rubber bands and other non-organic materials need to be removed from food waste. These items do not break down in the composting process, and if they aren’t removed prior they may end up in the final product. Things like napkins, coffee filters and compostable cutlery are all on the NO list as well. When a program accepts compostable cutlery and other materials, it opens the door to further contamination. Many products claim they are compostable but are not, and it can be difficult to tell as many products have ambiguous marketing that confuses the consumer. The County made the decision not to accept compostable cutlery or to-go items after speaking with other communities with food composting programs; their advice was all similar – start small and only accept food waste.
The one major food exception is shellfish. Exoskeletons of lobster and other shellfish are extremely resilient, and oyster shells are as strong and brittle as glass. These items don’t break down even in an extremely hot composting pile.
Teton County ISWR began accepting food waste from residents and businesses that could self-haul to the Food Waste Compost Facility, located at the Trash Transfer Station, in February 2021. The ISWR compost infrastructure is designed to handle 4,000 tons of food waste per year, but in its first year of collecting food waste it only processed 21.4 tons. This left 3,978 tons remaining in the potential capacity.
“Our food waste facility infrastructure is designed to capture the entire amount of food waste that we are seeing in the landfill bound trash,” says Becky Kiefer, ISWR waste diversion outreach coordinator. “We have the means to accept, process and compost the food waste discards, now we need community buy in and participation.”
Food waste can be brought to the Recycling Center between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in 5 gallon buckets for $2 per container.
Commercial food businesses can self-haul to the Trash Transfer Station or join the ‘Curb to Compost’ program. Food businesses joining the program will select their preferred bear-resistant bin size and pick-up schedule, and be provided equipment and tools, training and education on proper food waste composting practices.
ISWR estimates that 500 tons of food waste could be removed annually from the waste stream by February of 2025. By adding 500 tons each additional year, ISWR will meet its goal of composting 4,000 tons of food waste annually, moving Teton County closer to its goal of 60 percent diversion of all waste by 2030.
Teton County ISWR encourages residents, businesses and visitors to commit to incorporating food waste composting into their daily lives, because the food waste reduction efforts in Teton County are making a difference.
“I think Teton County community members are genuinely invested in environmental issues and waste diversion, and understanding the impact of landfilled food waste is only the first step,” says Kiefer. “With your help, we can cut Teton County’s overall landfill bound waste to 60 percent by keeping food out of the landfill and reclaiming it to be a resource for our community through composting.”
