Recycle Utah Executive Director Jim Bedell said the nonprofit has been reluctant to accept food waste at its current site. That’s because the facility has limited space and food waste comes with an odor that attracts animals. But the nonprofit recognizes its importance.
“Food waste is the most important thing we can keep out of the landfill at this point, and what's been sorely lacking in the community is just the infrastructure necessary to collect that,” Bedell said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Tuesday.
Now, Bedell said Recycle Utah will be able to take food waste because changes to its glass recycling operations have opened up additional space.
In the past, two bins were required for glass recycling because brown glass contains iron and had to be separated from clear glass objects. But Bedell said the use of brown glass has declined and Momentum Recycling — which takes Recycle Utah’s glass — can more easily process it.
Since there’s no longer a need to separate glass by color, Bedell said only a single collection bin is needed. That’s allowing the recycler to collect food waste, as well as candy and chip wrappers.
“We feel like we're ready to handle it. We're going in with our eyes open,” Bedell said. “We've done a lot of research over the years and spoken with people who have successfully managed to collect food waste and minimize some of those risks.”
Recycle Utah has worked with Park City Mountain, which has been successfully collecting food waste for years, as well as some local restaurants.
The food waste will be collected in small, individualized containers and sent to Wasatch Resource Recovery to be processed.
A date on when food waste will be accepted has not yet been announced.
Recycle Utah is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
