Port Washington North to launch food scraps composting program

Cracked egg shells. Meat bones. Vegetable scraps.

Most Long Islanders toss their food scraps in the garbage, where they are then delivered to a landfill or an incinerator. But few municipalities offer options to sustainably dispose of them. 

A new food scraps drop-off program in the Village of Port Washington North would give those items a second life by transforming them into compost, a mixture of decayed organic matter. Officials hope the initiative can provide a blueprint for the rest of Nassau County. A $75,000 grant from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation will help kickstart the program, which Mayor Robert Weitzner hopes to launch in the fall in conjunction with Residents Forward, a Port Washington environmental nonprofit.

“This absolutely helps the environment,” Weitzner said in an interview, noting that composting “benefits the soil by turning food scraps into viable compost.”

Composting has gained steady momentum on Long Island in recent years, with Riverhead Town launching a program in 2022 and Southold Town doing so in 2024. But Port Washington North’s program will mark the first of its kind in Nassau County, said Patricia Class, president of Residents Forward.

Class said in an interview that composting is “one of the easiest things homeowners can do to lower methane gas.” In New York State, food scraps represent 18% of all waste, according to the New York City Food Policy Center at Hunter College. The practice is more common in New York City, where buildings can be subjected to fines for not composting leaves, grass and food scraps.

“People are really intimidated by composting,” she said. “They’re not really sure how to do it. It’s messy. They think it’s going to attract rodents. It’s smelly. We’re looking to make things easier for the community, while doing something great for the environment.” 

That effort is two-pronged: There will be education programming on the benefits of composting, as well as compost containers that the village will sell for $25 to $35, Weitzner said. Residents will drop off their scraps at a designated location, and the waste will be broken down and turned into compost, which will then be made available to residents for free.

Compost can be used in gardens and on farms to help accelerate plant growth, Class said.

The education component will be shepherded by Eco-Leap, a Port Washington consulting firm that provides sustainability guidance to municipalities, companies, nonprofits and more. Mindy Germain, president of Eco-Leap, said a website, social media clips and more will look to dispel stereotypes about food waste and composting.

The initiative will "get to the barriers that stop people from doing this," Germain said. "It will be very optimistic, practical, neighbor-to-neighbor type communications, not at all trying to guilt people into this."

She added, "we really feel like this is new for Long Island, in terms of drop-off programs, so we really want to create something that can be replicated in other communities."

Composting food waste could allow Long Islanders to “contribute to creating a circular economy in which resources are recycled, rather than wasted,” Sasha Pesci, an assistant professor of sustainability at Hofstra University, said in an email.

”Currently our economic system is primarily linear, in which we produce things, consume them, and dispose of them,” she said. “A lot of that food waste ends up in a landfill when it could instead be recycled into a very valuable and useful resource.”

Guggenheim Elementary School, on Poplar Place in Port Washington, will also participate in the program.

The effort will “get the kids excited about helping the environment, and doing something really good, and then take that home to the parents,” Weitzner said. “We’ll focus on that elementary school, even focus on their own cafeteria, and whether or not they could donate food scraps, on foods that are garbage after the kids’ lunches, and all the teachers and faculty.”

In the future, Weitzner said, he would like residents to be able to leave food scraps outside for weekly pickup, just like garbage and recycling.

“That’s ultimately what we could do,” he said. “But we need considerable buy-in for that. We’re taking baby steps.”

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.