Zero to Go's Compost Project Will Strike Black Gold in the Hudson Valley

A food waste sundae that could become compost in Zero to Go's new pickup program.

Recycling wasn't a thing in our house until our local trash company, Royal Carting, put a new orange-topped trashcan in our driveway. Pangs of guilt would hit me each time I tossed a metal lid of cat food into the trash, or stuffed a plastic or cardboard egg carton into the rest of the waste. Until researching this article, I did not realize that recycling was mandatory by law for Dutchess County enacted in 1990. Around 2012, Dutchess Country went "single stream", which means that consumers can put mixed items of recycling into one trash can, which is when Royal Carting dropped off the orange-lidded can for single-stream recycling pickup and changed our waste habits for good.

When recycling pickup in Beacon became official, and Royal Carting picked it up every other week, we sprang for a new dual side trash can to separate the trash from the recycling, and now I gladly fill up the recycling side to the brim. Now that so many materials can be recycled, we have more recylcing in our smaller trash can than we do the larger trash can. What's left on the trash side? Mainly food. And being a Backyard Farmer, I wanted to compost the food, but there's too much city-girl in me to deal with the flies. So it's the food I now look at with longing - longing to turn it into compost - the black gold of soil.

Enter Zero to Go. The education-based waste management company who's been literally sweeping the Hudson Valley to separate trash, recycling and compostable material since 2013. Zero to Go has handled 18 events throughout the Hudson Valley and Manhattan, including the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, The Peekskill Hop and Harvest Festival, Beacon’s Riverfest with Local 845, the Iron Pour, benefits for Common Ground Farm and other local events. And now Zero to Go's founder, Sarah Womer, wants to collect it from your home or business.

The Compost Project is the newest initiative from Zero to Go that held its first Town Hall Meeting about it last week, and hosts its second Town Hall Meeting today, Saturday, at 11am. The pilot program is designed run on business and residential investment and donations. Only 30 residential slots and 4 business slots are available in the pilot program, and as of this morning, 18 of those have been filled! The application to sign up to be one of the first in the project is here.

Participants in the pilot program will be given a special trash can to hold food waste (those who sign up in later phases can buy the trash can). The can will be collected weekly - by bike - by Zero to Go. If you're an avid recycler, you'll know that the every-other-week pickup for recycling could easily be converted into weekly for your own needs.

During this first phase, the food waste will be carted to network of industrial compost sites and farms in the Hudson Valley. This is where it will turn into "black gold" as Sarah calls it, to be used to make the soil even more nutrient rich for farming, backyard gardening, and even Main Street flower tending.

Zero to Go is hosting a Kickstarter campaign to fund-raise for the bins they need to begin collecting material from the first 34 customers. Compost material will be used by sources in the Hudson Valley. In order to deliver it back to Beaconites, Zero to Go will need to build its own infrastructure, which it plans to begin fundraising and grant seeking for in 2016.