Westchester Breaks Ground on County Compost and Education Center
Ground was broken Wednesday on Westchester County’s compost and education center on the Grasslands campus in Valhalla that will accept scraps of food from municipalities that don’t have their own composting programs.
County Executive George Latimer was joined by officials from the Department of Environmental Facilities (DEF) to help publicize the center, which will be named CompostED, that is expected to open sometime next spring. It will be built by R. Pugni and Sons, Inc. of Thornwood.
In addition to being a facility to compost, it will also service as an education center to help residents, students and municipal officials from around the county to learn how to recycle food scraps.
“All of this is part of a multiyear effort, which is trying to take food out of the waste stream, properly disposed of and one more step toward the kind of environment we need to have,” Latimer said.
Westchester is already recycling roughly half of its waste, well above the national average, and the facility is expected to increase that total, said DEF Commissioner Vincent Kopicki.
Deputy Commissioner Louis Vetrone said the county has been moving forward with education efforts to increase composting and recycling, which have increased since the start of the pandemic.
“We can’t wait for this facility to be up and running,” Vetrone said. “It furthers our mission of offering environmental education programs to the county’s students and residents.”
Last winter when Latimer announced that the facility would be built as part of a larger composting effort in the county, it was estimated that the cost to build CompostED would be about $450,000. At that time, county officials said about 125,000 tons of commercial food waste and more than 85,000 tons of residential food waste are generated each year in Westchester.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/