From BioCycle Magazine
September 2000, Page 72

PRECONSUMER COLLECTION
COMPOSTING FOOD SERVICE SCRAPS AT RESORT
Vermont resort collects preconsumer food residuals for on-site composting program during warm months, then sends material to commercial composter in cold season.
Molly Farrell

SMUGGLERS’ Notch Resort, a ski and summer resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont, is running an on-site composting program to collect preconsumer food scraps from its food service and restaurant facilities. Resort personnel began planning in late 1998 and management approved the project in June, 1999. According to Chris Bolen, environmental permits and compliance coordinator for Smugglers’, four seven-foot-square by five-foot-high composting bins were built in August with pressure-treated wooden sides and concrete floors. Composting began in time to capture food residuals from the fall foliage tourist season in September and October.

On-site composting means significant cost savings for Smugglers’ as well as waste diversion from landfills. “We have a lot of flower gardens to fertilize and protect in winter,” says Bolen. The resort’s landscape gardeners provide the necessary labor and use finished compost in the flower beds. “Making our own compost saves money in two ways,” says Bolen. “By keeping the food waste on-site, we avoid paying the $116/ton cost for landfilling it, and every yard of compost generated means one less yard that we need to purchase elsewhere.”

COMPOSTING OPERATION

Casella Waste Management, Inc. of Vermont, the resort’s trash and recycling hauler, provides Smugglers’ with free 64-gallon, lidded plastic containers for organics collection. The containers, labeled “meat compost only” and “vegetable compost only,” are placed at the resort’s Meeting House, which includes a restaurant and food service complex managed by Boston Concessions Group. “The food service vendor is fine with it,” says Bowen. “We realize, though, that they have limited space and are not going to capture 100 percent of the food waste.” Food residuals containers are also placed at the Hearth and Candle, a restaurant in a separate building leased by the resort to an independent restaurateur.

Bolen is in charge of training Boston Concessions Group’s kitchen staff on how to separate preconsumer food residuals. “I gave the staff some laminated lists provided by Casella, which tell what can and cannot be composted,” he says.

Once the containers are filled, kitchen staff wheel them outside. Resort service personnel collect them along with recyclables and regular trash. The food scraps and plant residues from the gardens are ground using an eight-horsepower chipper and composted with horse manure from a neighboring farm. Meat scraps and any excess vegetable material are hauled to the Intervale Compost facility in Burlington by Casella on an on-call basis (see “From Ice Cream To Nuts In Food Residuals Composting,” October, 1998). Bolen says that Smugglers’ cannot compost meat in its bins because of the likelihood that it would attract wild animals and create offensive odors.

According to Bolen, cold weather makes on-site composting impractical in the winter, and labor is less available. From November through April, all of Smugglers’ compostable material is shipped to Intervale Compost. Casella charges approximately $65/ton for composting versus $116/ton for landfilling.

The 1999-2000 ski season was the first full one of operation for the Smugglers’ composting program, although food residuals were collected from Meeting House kitchens only. “In order for our programs to be successful and economically viable over the long term, the activities of several groups must be coordinated,” says Bolen. “Our food service vendor, Boston Concessions Group, our solid waste service personnel, the flower ladies (landscapers) and Casella must all work together.” Bolen limited collection to one venue “until all the players know the drill and the program is running smoothly.” Smugglers’ hopes to expand the program to the Morse Highlands and Base Lodges during the upcoming winter season.