PORTLAND, Maine — The City of Portland is offering a new free composting program to encourage people to throw away less food and instead use it for soil at community gardens in the city.
There are five locations:
- Boyd St. Community Garden
- North St. Community Garden
- Libbytown Community Garden
- Clark St. Community Garden
- Riverside Recycling Facility
The community gardens have two large receptacles to accept the food scraps, which people must drop off. Those locations accept drop-offs 24/7.
Riverside Recycling Facility is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, but City staff encourages people to go during off-hours, between 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Each drop-off site will have two covered containers for residents to use. Residents are advised to collect food scraps at home in any airtight container; when full, bring it to one of the collection sites and empty it into one of the containers.
The City recommends rinsing the container before using it again. The collection program will be able to accept any food scraps from a household including fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, and bones.
The City will share program data with the University of Maine’s Mitchell Center, whose researchers will help evaluate the environmental and budgetary benefits of food waste collection. The City of Portland Sustainability Office will also collaborate with the Mitchell Institute and Maine DEP to promote the Food Recovery Hierarchy, which prioritizes reducing the amount of wasted food through careful purchasing, then donating edible food to feed hungry people, feeding animals, composting, and finally disposing of unwanted food in a waste-to-energy plant or landfill.