| Demand for composting bins soars in North Jersey |
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By Giovanna Fabiano
Sunday, November 18, 2007 solid waste manager at the Bergen County Utilities Authority, which sells the bins. The authority has sold 225 bins since August, with 50 selling out in the first few weeks after the article ran, Vangieri said. Before August, the average number of bins sold was about three per month, said Lori Russo, a solidwaste education and technical adviser at the BCUA. "We've had residents, schools, even a few garden clubs contact us about picking up composting bins," Russo said. "They've literally been flying off the shelves." The amount of waste generated by North Jerseyans has increased in recent years, but recycling rates have dropped, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. In 2004, the last year for which the DEP has statistics, Bergen County municipalities recycled 40.5 percent of solid waste, while Passaic County recycled 33.4 percent, Morris County, 35.1 percent and Hudson County, 27 percent. In 1995, Bergen County municipalities recycled 58.6 percent of municipal solid waste, which is essentially residential waste -- cans and bottles, paper, cardboard, leaves and yard refuse. Passaic County recorded a 48.5 percent rate. Composting has also made its way into schools, with more than a dozen in Bergen County either beginning or planning composting programs this year, including Teaneck, Woodcliff Lake, Waldwick and Wyckoff. At Al-Ghazaly Junior/Senior High School in Teaneck, a composting program spearheaded by seniors is under way in the cafeteria, said Diana Saed, a science teacher at the school. "We have our compost bins set up outside, and everyday we have students collecting leftover food from the cafeteria and making their daily run to the bins," Saed said. "The high school students are taking the lead on this project and it's great because it really cuts down on waste." At Woodcliff Middle School in Woodcliff Lake, students are leading an environmental project involving composting in the school's courtyard, said Julie Ogden, the sixth-grade science teacher. During the school's recent expansion, an old parking lot was converted into a courtyard, which the students are now helping to repave. Plans for the courtyard include a butterfly garden, but the soil must be improved to grow flowers, Ogden said. "The soil is poor after being a parking lot for so long, so composting would improve it," Ogden said. "They throw so much of their lunch away here, so instead of tossing fruits and sandwiches, they're going to compost it." The project's benefits would be twofold: Not only would it improve the soil, it would reduce the amount of waste. The Passaic County Office of Natural Resource Programs has held several outreach and education programs to support municipal waste reduction, recycling and composting efforts. Al Dubois, the recycling coordinator in Clifton, said his department holds worm-composting workshops in the schools and educational seminars on backyard composting. A longtime composting advocate, Dubois believes the state should mandate the practice for restaurants and supermarkets. "It's wonderful if individual people are composting, and we're constantly pushing that in the community, but the tremendous amount of food waste generated by restaurants alone is going to our landfills when it should be recycled," he said. Although the state is now without a single food composting center, two facilities are planned for Middlesex County, including Converted Organics, which will handle 500 tons of commercial food waste per day when it opens in early 2008. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
At Al-Ghazaly Junior/Senior High School in Teaneck, Aayah Elhosary, left, Bajro Mrkulic and Shareef Omar dump food scraps into bins.| < Prev | Next > |
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