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Waste & Recycling October 26, 2021 02:45:23 AM

Philadelphia, PA to Compost 150 Tons of Waste a Year from Meals Served at Rec Centers

Waste Advantage
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The waste will eventually be taken to a former Parks and Recreation maintenance yard on the 5600 block of Rising Sun Avenue.

Philadelphia, PA to Compost 150 Tons of Waste a Year from Meals Served at Rec Centers

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage):  Parks and Recreation serves 2.1 million meals to youth each year through summer camps and 120 after-school programs, and up to 200,000 meals to older adults. Meals range from breakfast and lunch served at the camps to later meals served during the after-school and older-adult programs. All the waste from discarded food adds up.

Officials estimated each of the city’s 156 rec centers generates nearly a ton of food waste a year. Parks and Recreation launched a program in September to collect food waste from 25 of the centers. The rest will be folded in over the next four years, said Daniel Lawson, the department’s sustainability director.

The waste will eventually be taken to a former Parks and Recreation maintenance yard on the 5600 block of Rising Sun Avenue. There, Bennett Compost, a city-based business, is building a facility that can not only handle vegetable waste but also meat and dairy through an aeration process that ensures compost piles rise to a temperature of 140 degrees for 72 consecutive hours to kill any pathogens. Wood chips and leaves will be added to facilitate breakdown. Currently, Bennett is taking the waste to one of its existing compost facilities.

“We’ve been looking for a way to deal with our organic wastes,” Lawson said, “specifically our food waste that’s coming out of our recreation centers. It’s just one big footprint of waste that we’ve been able to identify, especially as being the second-largest distributor of meals to youth and then even also the older adults in the city.”

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantage.com

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