The Adirondack North Country Association and AdkAction’s Compost for Good initiative will receive a $20,000 grant from the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I for short). The money will be used to develop an online toolkit that will help users build and operate large-scale composting systems. AdkAction, a nonprofit group that focuses on environmental and social issues in the Adirondacks, will provide administrative support for the project.

“NYSP2I is pleased to support these efforts to decrease food wastes and increase beneficial use of these organic materials,” said NYSP2I Director Charles Ruffing.

NYSP2I, which works with New York businesses, nonprofits and communities on issues of sustainability, is sponsored by the state Department of Environmental Conservation through the Environmental Protection Fund and led by Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability.

In recent years, another grant from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority, through ANCA, helped construct of a community-scale composter, which has been successfully operating at North Country School Camp Treetops for almost five years.

From left are Compost for Good project leaders John Culpepper, Katie Culpepper and Jennifer Perry. (Photo provided by Adirondack North Country Association)

John Culpepper, the school and camp’s director of facilities and sustainability, conceived of and designed the system. To date, it has been replicated in four additional locations: Lake Placid Central School District, Hermon Dekalb Central School, The Wild Center museum in Tupper Lake and the Pingry School in New Jersey.

The toolkit will include educational materials and videos, an online calculator to determine the most affordable composting path feasible, grant resources, legislative updates, access to a design and operating manual and access to contractors. Compost for Good staff will also be available for one-one-one consultations through tours, in-person visits or phone conversations.

The toolkit will be especially helpful in preparing for the upcoming “Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law” which will require all larger-scale food waste producers to keep food waste out of landfills and thereby reduce the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.