Rotten Food, Fun Day: Food Scrap Recycling Sign-up Sunday
Certain households in Rye are piloting a curbside food scrap recycling (FSR) program. This Sunday, additional residents can sign-up for the program at a special event being hosted by the Rye Sustainability Committee (RSC) at the Rye Farmers Market. Environmental organizations estimate that a full third of the waste that normally ends up in a landfill or incinerator in Westchester could be converted to compost if we recycled all our unused food.
Food Scrap Sunday Funday will take place Sunday, October 10th from 8:30am to 1:00pm at a special Rye Sustainability Committee booth. The Farmers Market is located in the parking lot off Theodore Fremd Avenue.
Residents who come early can:
- win a Milton Point Provisions gift card by signing up first, or by being first to bring a second resident to sign up
- get a free food scrap recycling Countertop pail and compostable bags, just for signing up
- get free pollinator seeds from Rye’s Monarch Waystation
- plant an herb and take it home (for kids)
- photograph a recycling how-to sheet with vegan and cheese pesto recipes
“Food scrap recycling has become tremendously popular in Rye,” said Linda Mackay of the Rye Sustainability Committee. “We look forward to signing up even more households for FSR this fall, now that the school year has begun and warm soup is on tables – with leftover vegetable, bean, and meat scraps all looking for a compostable home.”
The current program potentially could be made permanent in January. Westchester County has offered an incentive for municipal food scrap programs, paying a large portion of the fees for transporting food scraps to composting facilities.
