New Haven, Connecticut, will soon be home to a major composting facility. This comes amid a statewide waste disposal crisis: Few local disposal options exist, and the cost of sending trash to landfills in other states is increasing.
The new facility will be built on the site of the city’s decommissioned trash incinerator.
Five years ago, Connecticut was sending around 17% percent of its trash out of state. That number has since more than doubled to 40%, according to New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.
“Most of the trash here goes to Bridgeport and is burned,” Elicker said, gesturing to the trash behind him at the New Haven Transfer Station. “And that is clearly not the best solution for compostable materials that could be used for much better purposes.”
More food reaches landfills than any other material in household trash, according to the EPA. It makes up about 24% of municipal solid waste.
New Haven already has a few big-belly composting bins around the city, which Elicker said have collected 2.5 tons of compostable material.
“One person's compost could become another person's opportunity to grow new food,” Elicker said. “One person's trash could become another person's opportunity to have biogas to help heat their homes.”
State Rep. Steve Winter (D), who also leads the city’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, said the food waste collected from the program will likely be used for composting or sent to an anaerobic digestion facility to make biogas. Connecticut’s only anaerobic digesting facility is in Southington.
City officials said they hope to have it operating in 2027. They expect to distribute special bags to collect food waste, which will go in residents’ normal garbage bins with their other trash, making it easier for people to participate in the program. The bins will be picked up as usual and sorted at the transfer station.
“The goal here is to make this as easy as possible for our residents, as easy as possible for our own public works team, and to make sure that we get the results that we want,” Elicker said.
Elicker was joined by Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes and other city and state officials to celebrate the development on Thursday.
DEEP is contributing $3.3 million to help build the facility. This is part of the Materials Management Infrastructure Grant Program, which is distributing $15 million to nine towns to lower waste disposal costs.
“We're going to be helping communities to lower their waste disposal costs and increasing recycling and food scrap diversion, which we know are proven strategies to help increase our cell our self-sufficiency and how we manage the disposal of waste here in Connecticut,” Dykes said.
Other projects that DEEP is supporting are in Coventry ($202,896), Greenwich ($15,892), Housatonic Resources Regional Authority ($779,750), Manchester ($4,775,000), Mansfield ($129,500), Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resource Recovery Authority ($4,500,000) Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments ($425,711) and Stratford ($544,583).
