Skokie has introduced a drop-off composting program that helps the environment by avoiding the buildup of a greenhouse gas called methane in landfills, and it could be a trial balloon for village-wide composting curbside pickup, said a local environmental activist.
The free program, in which food scraps and other organic waste can be deposited in bins in five locations throughout Skokie, will determine public interest for curbside services to complement garbage and recycling pickup, said Jim McNelis, vice-chair of the village’s Sustainable Environmental Advisory Commission.
Skokie will use Evanston-based Collective Resource Composting for the drop-off service. The company already serves 320 customers in Skokie, and another 60 in Morton Grove, who have their own paid subscriptions for composting pickups.
Both the Village Board and the environment commission are promoting the new drop-off program that matches similar arrangements in Evanston, Winnetka and Glencoe.
Drop-off locations are available 24 hours a day at the following Skokie locations:
Village Hall, near the main entrance
Public Works headquarters, 9050 Gross Point Road, near the main entrance
Devonshire Park, in the Grove Street parking lot near the basketball courts
Oakton Park, in the south parking lot off Kenton Avenue near the tennis courts at Oakton Park
Fire Station 16, 7424 Niles Center Road, in and the parking lot off Fargo Avenue
McNelis said it will take effort to make residents aware of the benefits of composting, which redirects organic waste into the production of nutrient-rich fertilizer.
More Top Picks Best Smart Water Leak Detectors For Basements
“It would take some time to build it up,” McNelis said of community involvement in composting. Some 25% of garbage is estimated to be food scraps that could be re-directed to composting, officials indicated.
If the village ever runs a curbside composting program, McNelis projected a drop-off system would continue to serve businesses, apartments and condos for which curbside pickup would not be practical.
Running the dropoff program is Elizabeth Zimmerman, assistant to Public Works Director Max Slankard. She said the new system will complement the “orange bucket program” of compost pickup, which she termed “very successful.”
Erlene Howard, founder-owner of Collective Resource Composting, said weekly pickups cost $27 a month, while bi-weekly pickups cost $20.50 a month.
Howard said 156 Skokie customers are bi-weekly, while 142 are weekly. The remaining customers contract for less-frequent service. In Morton Grove, 31 are bi-weekly while 29 are weekly.
A wide variety of items are eligible to be composted at both pickup and drop-off sites. They include all food scraps, food products, spoiled food, bones, pizza boxes and other containers that have food remnants or stains, along with soiled paper plates and napkins, that would not be thrown in with recycling pickups, said Zimmerman. Food scraps and other eligible items can be deposited without a bag or in a paper or compostable bag, but not a plastic bag.
The 13-year-old Collective Resource Composting hauls the compost to Lake Shore Recycling Service’s facility at 31st and California Avenue in Chicago. The organic material is mixed in with yard waste and old Christmas trees to cure in football field-length “wind rows.” Tractors and front-end loaders periodically turn over the waste to prevent it from being covered up, according to Howard, who added that deprivation of oxygen in landfills is the big factor in the methane buildup.
“During the process while it’s breaking down, the chemical reaction makes the pile warm up,” said Howard. “It naturally gets hot. Once it reaches a certain temperature, it’s turned to aerate it again. In the Chicago area, it takes about 90 days from waste to soil amendment, to where it’s cured of pathogens and weed seeds have been killed.
“Then, the material is sold to landscapers and park districts, golf courses and the Illinois Department of Transportation for its new roads. Some of the material is sold to Scott’s Lawn Care, which mixes it in with seeds. Seeds with compost have 80 percent higher germinating ability.”
Added Zimmerman: “Synthetic fertilizers only have nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. But compost will have calcium, iron and magnesium.”
In addition to curbing methane emissions, which contribute to climate change, a host of benefits are found in limiting deposits of organic material in landfills, she said.
“Landfills are filling up on the West Coast,” said Zimmerman. “We really value that space and want to get ahead of these problems that our children will have to deal with it. Nobody wants to live next to a landfill. It makes sense to separate it out.”
Re-directing scraps into compost will help in vermin control.
“We believe they stop rodent population,” Zimmerman said. “Food waste is not sitting out in the alley. At the drop-off sites, we’re very careful to ensure the lids are closed.
“Each of five sites has two containers that are emptied once a week. We’ll adjust based on the volume of the program. We do a full swap-out of containers.”
The onset of warmer weather does not necessarily require more pickups of compost deposits from drop-off sites, said Howard.
“There are a lot of bogeyman ideas around the idea of composting,” she said. “Sometimes the volume increases with warm weather with melon rinds or corncobs, and more vegetables.”
Howard said Evanston, which has its drop-off site at the Robert Crown Center, actually expanded the number of containers based on increased use.
Projecting ahead for the drop-off program, Zimmerman said cost to the village should be “minimal.”
The recent switch from twice-weekly to once-weekly garbage and recycling pickup in Skokie will have no effect on the curbside compost pickups, though it may encourage some residents to drop off food scraps in the drop-off compost bins.