The city and town of Geneva, NY, in partnership with Blueprint Geneva and Growing Cycle, are applying to the USDA for a federal grant to expand their composting services. They have sent composting bins out to about 80 residents so far.
Blueprint Geneva
Blueprint Geneva is a non-profit organization founded in 2016. Its mission is “to pursue new concepts to grow an interconnected and economically-empowered community.” According to their website, they started a composting program, called Growing Cycle. This diverts food waste, along with other biodegradables, from landfills. Given then over 25% of waste in landfills is food waste, this can have huge benefits in sustainability along with helping to make plant growth more effective. Compost is incredibly beneficial for gardens, lawns, and flower beds.
USDA Programs
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers grants for local governments to promote composting programs. Depending on the municipality, these may come at a cost to the resident or be offered for free. Sometimes, like in New York, they are done as part of the sanitation program. Through the current program, the USDA Composting and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) cooperative agreements, the USDA is trying to reduce waste and improve food security.
They do this through offering competitive programs to municipalities that are willing to promote innovation and implement programs in these areas in hopes that they can prove benefits along with improving sustainability. This is the third year that the USDA is offering the programs. They are investing over $10 million in new cooperative agreements to expand compost and food waste reduction efforts.
Benefits for Geneva
As part of the program, local governments, such as Geneva, can submit projects that do one of the following:
- generate compost;
- provide access to compost to farmers;
- reduce fertilizer use;
- improve soil quality;
- encourage waste management and permaculture business development;
- increase rainwater absorption; reduce municipal food waste; and/or
- divert food waste from landfills.
Composting programs are ideally suited for these cooperative agreements because they meet basically all of the stated objectives.