Today, the City of Frederick is holding a workshop on Frederick's composting pilot program! For the past two years, the City has offered free food scrap pickup to City households through Key City Compost, to be composted at Key City's compost facility near Thurmont. Now, the pilot program is coming to an end, and the City of Frederick faces the decision of whether to make it permanent, what the permanent parameters should be, and how it should be paid for. Read our testimony below, and if you live in Frederick City, take action here!
Public Comments on 9/18 Mayor & Board of Aldermen Workshop:
Discussion of the Residential Compost Pilot program
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Dear Mayor O’Connor and Members of the Board of Aldermen,
Clean Water Action strongly supports local efforts throughout Maryland to reduce food waste and divert organic waste from landfills and incinerators toward composting. We have been excited to see the City of Frederick’s residential compost pilot program grow and succeed over the past two years. The City of Frederick can advance its sustainability goals, preserve space in the landfill, and provide a meaningful service to its residents by making the pilot program permanent, incorporating it into the City’s solid waste budget, and ensuring that it remains free for City residents to participate.
Over the past several years, communities across Maryland have been demonstrating how making separate food scrap pickup a core part of their solid waste services on par with trash and recycling pickup is a successful solid waste management strategy. These communities can provide valuable examples and lessons learned for Frederick on how to transition from a pilot to a permanent program, and how to facilitate and budget for universal separate food scrap pickup and composting.
- Prince George’s County began a small pilot program for residential food scrap pickup in 2017, grew to a larger program in 2019, and made the program permanent in 2021. After several phases of expansion, as of January 2024, every household that receives County-provided trash and recycling services is eligible for food scrap pickup through the County, free of charge.
- Within Prince George’s County, the City of University Park offers free food scrap pickup to all of its households, after first launching a pilot program in 2011, as do the City of Hyattsville and the City of College Park. The City of Laurel has offered free food scrap pickup for a number of years, and just passed legislation to make participating in the compost program mandatory – the first such jurisdiction in Maryland.
- In Howard County, the “Feed the Green Bin” food scrap collection program launched as a “mini pilot” program in 2010, and has grown to over 18,000 households in the County participating. 59% of all households in the entire county currently have access to the program, with the County planning to expand it as its compost facility gains more capacity. This program is free to all eligible households in the County.
- Within Montgomery County, the City of Takoma Park has offered weekly curbside food scrap pickup to all households in the city, as well as multifamily properties up to 12 units that receive city trash and recycling pickup since 2013. The Town of Somerset offers weekly curbside food scrap pickup to all households in the City through a partnership with Compost Crew, free to all residents.
Throughout Maryland, local governments have successfully implemented separate food scrap pickup and composting by incorporating it into their core waste management budget, without separate cost to residents and with as few barriers for participation as recycling pickup. The Executive Summary for this workshop notes,
“Reevaluating the trash and compost costs together may be the most effective approach. The City may choose to pay for the cost of the Residential Compost program to keep it available to residents. Residents currently pay for trash service through their annual City taxes, however they do not see a specific bill tied to that cost. The Compost program might be added to that.”
Separately picking up and composting food scraps is as valuable and important as picking up trash or as separately picking up and recycling paper, glass, and plastic. Incorporating it into core city services and budgets on equal footing with recycling pickup is important for generating goodwill and excitement for residents to participate.
Clean Water Action is excited about the success of this Residential Compost Pilot program and the City of Frederick’s leadership on Zero Waste. We encourage you to make the program permanent and a core part of City solid waste services at no extra cost to participating residents to grow the program into the future.
Thank you,
Jennifer Kunze
Maryland Organizing Director
Clean Water Action
