Musings: Waste less food, waste less money

This holiday season, many Long Islanders have been focused on the increased prices of groceries. We should also focus on the increased prices of throwing out our unused food scraps.

From the Thanksgiving leftovers in the back of the fridge to the batch of holiday cookies that didn’t come out quite right, the disposal of food and other organics has a significant impact on our local waste stream, comprising about 30% of all the trash we produce.

Despite the scale of this issue — one that every Long Islander contributes to — we have yet to address it with a cohesive strategy that provides solutions. This is primarily due to a lack of solid waste infrastructure in our region and education about how we can reduce, reuse, and recycle our food scraps.

We look forward to having an active anaerobic digester, one of the most effective methods for processing food scraps, and need to spread awareness on the impact our trash has on our pocketbooks and the environment.

Yet we are seeing signs of progress. Municipal waste officials, environmental groups, and community members have been working together to promote food scrap drop-off programs and backyard composting with sales of the machines at discounted rates, and providing guidance to interested residents.

When people recycle or compost food scraps, those scraps often are used to provide fertilizer and animal feed. It’s a cycle that returns nutrients to the soil, reduces methane emissions from landfills, and cuts waste management costs.

If these efforts continue to gain traction, we will see improved rates of waste reduction on Long Island.

— Marjorie Spitz, Montauk

The writer is co-founder of the Long Island Organics Initiative.