Turn your food scraps into dirt for FREE with new city recycling program starting Friday

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - Up to 1,000 in Springfield and the surrounding area can recycle food scraps at various drop-off locations around the city.

This is all possible with funds through a $286,000 Composting and Food Waste Reduction grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. The city’s Dish to Dirt Food Scraps Recycling program will allow participants to drop off food waste items for free at any of the city’s three recycling drop-off facilities during designated hours.

From there, food waste will be transported to the city’s Yardwaste Recycling Center and turned into nutrient-rich compost.

Ashley Krug works in Environmental Services with the city. She said this program will help save the planet and is a great way to engage people with the community.

“Food waste is the number two largest quantity of anything we see going into the landfill, so about 14% of what we see in the landfill is actually food waste,” Krug said. “It’s a great thing for us to be diverting to better opportunities than just rotting in a landfill and creating greenhouse gasses.”

Krug also said the city is working on starting this same recycling program but instead has a commercial program so local restaurants can participate in it as well.

“We have restaurants participating like Finley Farms down in Ozark, and they are going to see that go back to their soil. Businesses like Costco too have a really different type of food waste but also still pretty significant,” Krug said. “Our local universities are also a great part of how their cafeterias are feeding students. We can take that food waste from them. Even our zoo is participating, so we have to prep food for animals, so whatever is wasted will come back through this as well.”

You can register for the program here.

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