City officials say a voluntary food waste recycling program has already saved thousands of dollars while helping to reduce Kingston’s carbon footprint. Now, plans call for expanding the program using a big state grant.

The Kingston Organics Diversion program launched in July 2023 with a handful of participants. It has since grown to 473 households representing 1,035 Kingstonians. Program participants take their food waste to one of 11 secure collection sites around the city where it is picked up by the Department of Public Works and taken to the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency’s facility on Route 32. There, the scraps are tuned into compost which is then sold locally with profits going back to UCRRA.

Processing food scraps locally costs $20 per ton compared to $115 per ton when they are mixed with household trash which must be trucked 235 miles away to the Seneca Meadows landfill. In the year since the program launched, city officials say that the program has diverted 33.65 tons of food scraps from the waste stream, saving $3,196. In addition to cost savings, the program aligns with the city’s Climate Action Plan — which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — by cutting the number of truck trips to Seneca Meadows.

The food waste diversion program got a boost this week when the city was awarded $538,409 from the state’s Climate Smart Communities program. The funding is part of a $7.3 million allocation from Gov. Kathy Hochul to support the program, which rewards communities for innovative efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Kingston has participated in the program since it launched in 2016 and was the first municipality in the state to achieve a “Silver Certification” for implementing climate-friendly policies.

In an email to Kingston Wire, city Sustainability Programs Coordinator Julie Noble said that there were no specific plans on how to use the money but now that the grant was in hand she would work with other city officials to determine the best use of the funds to support and expand the program.

“We will be working across departments to make those decisions in the coming months, after much due diligence, research and public outreach and input,” Noble wrote. “We want to be sure whatever process and methods we implement will be cost-effective, practical and sustainable.”