By Virginia Scholtz
Northside News
Think about the coffee grounds you flush down the drain or toss into the garbage. What about the cabbage cores or the potatoes that went soft before you could use them? There is a no-waste-no-guilt way to handle your food scraps. All you need is a covered bucket and a weekly trip to the farmers market or drop-off site.
There is an ecological advantage of composting food waste. It does not produce methane because the organic matter breaks down by the use of oxygen (aerobic decomposition) and converts the waste to carbon dioxide and water. Buried organic matter breaks down without oxygen present (anaerobic decomposition) and releases methane.
If community composting is going to be a beneficial environmental practice, it’s important to take care when deciding what fits into the category “food scraps.” For instance, coffee grounds and tea leaves, yes, but paper filters and tea bags, no. Even though “compostable” bags are available, they are not acceptable to our local composting services. (See the guidelines chart on this page.)
As more of us learn about the value of composting, opportunities to dispose of your food scraps are springing up around the Northside.
Warner Park
Starting this summer, a food scrap drop-off kiosk will be located in the parking lot closest to North Sherman Avenue (see map). It will be one of several collection sites set up by the city in conjunction with the Dane County Department of Waste & Renewables. All the sites will be free and accessible 24/7, but there will be a combination lock on each bin to prevent contamination, with the code available upon registration through the Dane County website (landfill.danecounty.gov/resources/compost).
The project will be financed by a $400,000 grant received in 2024 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Materials will be composted by Purple Cow Organics of Madison. More details about this are available at the Dane County Department of Waste & Renewables website listed above.
Northside Farmers Market
The market is held every Sunday from May 11 through October 26 at the Northside TownCenter parking lot. (northsidefarmersmarket.org)
Local artist Elliott Gilfillan is an advocate for community composting through a project he calls Brainplate Grows. The idea is to keep valuable food scraps out of the landfill and get them onto the compost pile.
He aims to make pick-up sites easily accessible around the Madison area, and plans to have a collection site at the Northside Farmers Market this summer. The project will rely on volunteers to staff the collection station and transport the bins to Troy Farms. Your help is needed. For questions and instructions, contact Elliott Gilfillan at brain
plate.grows@gmail.com or text/phone 608-421-8876.
Sustain Dane
This organization provides resources and education for sustainable living throughout Dane County (sustaindane.org). Food scraps are composted by Neighborhood Food Solutions Farm, 1501 Moorland Road.
In 2024 Sustain Dane collected food scraps at three farmers markets. The program diverted over 15 tons of food waste from landfill to compost. That’s equivalent to the weight of 15 American Bison.
Currently, food scrap pick-up locations are at Westside Community Farmers Market at 505 S., Rosa Road, South Madison Farmers Market at 1602 S. Park St., and Eastside Farmers Market at 202 S. Ingersoll St. They hope to open in more local markets if funding is expanded.
