A 2019 study commissioned by Summit County found roughly 80% of the solid waste reaching the local landfill could be diverted and 40% to 60% of it is food.
The climate fund says that waste releases methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
“We’re trying to keep the landfill from filling up, saving money for the community,” Park City Community Foundation Climate Fund Manager Andy Hecht said. “We’re trying to keep methane out of the environment. We take that food waste, divert it to a processor, and that processor can handle it in different ways, but ultimately, at the end of that process, we have something that can be reused in our society. It’s not filling up, it’s not producing methane, and we’re capturing the energy that it took to make that food in the beginning.”
Eyee Hsu, one of the nonprofit’s board members, said the first step to reduce waste is launching a residential curbside food collection program.
“One of our biggest goals this year is to have 1,000 residential homes within the greater Park City area signed up for residential composting,” Hsu said.
Sign-ups for the program will begin in April. The waste reduction plan will also create a dashboard to track the community’s progress and invest in a micro digester.
The residential composting program is expected to cost $12,000 annually, with an estimated household cost around $27 per month. The anticipated cost of a micro digester ranges from $500,000 to $1 million, depending on the capacity and other factors.
To reach the 2030 food waste goal, Hecht says it will take the support of Main Street restaurants, businesses, residents, and even tourists.
“We are a tourist-driven economy, we have lots of nightly rentals, lots of Airbnbs,” he said. “And that is a challenge, getting in there, changing behaviors for someone who’s in a vacation mode, who comes from a different environment they live in where they might have amazing compost, but the process might be a little different. They might be coming from someplace that has no compost, and the whole concept of putting food waste in a bin is very weird to them.”
The climate fund’s full strategic plan, created in collaboration with former Salt Lake County Mayor and U.S. Congressman Ben McAdams, can be found here.
