To compost or not to compost? Survey about the issue is available to residents in Paramus
Paramus is asking borough residents about a proposal to start a food recycling program in town, which supporters say could reduce waste and save money.
The Paramus Environmental Commission put together a survey about composting, the practice of letting food waste and organic material decompose into a soil-like material that can be used as fertilizer. Food makes up 24% of municipal waste that could have been composted, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sending this waste to landfills instead costs the borough tens of thousands of dollars annually, the survey said.
The survey asks residents about their attitude toward composting, their interest in such a program and what, if any, barriers or issues they might experience.
Those interested in taking the composting survey can find it at tinyurl.com/paramuscompost.
When food and other organic materials decompose in a landfill instead of being composted, they create methane, a greenhouse gas, according to the EPA. Wasted food is responsible for 58% of landfill methane emissions, according to the agency.
But when food is composted, on the other hand, nutrients and carbon will go back into the earth, which will “improve soil quality, support plant growth and build resilience in our local ecosystems and communities,” according to the EPA.
In 2019, 66.2 million tons of wasted food were generated in the food retail, food service and residential sectors in the United States, according to the EPA. Of this amount, only 5% of the wasted food was composted.
Paramus isn’t the only town to investigate the feasibility of composting on a town-wide level. In 2021, Ridgewood recruited 100 volunteer families to participate in a nine-month food recycling pilot program, the first of its kind in northern New Jersey.