Our Mammoth Mission for Food Scraps Composting: 22,000 Pounds in 2024
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Our three free food scraps drop-off sites at farmer’s market locations around Madison have passed 10,000 pounds collected for composting this year.
This is great news and puts us ahead of last year’s pace.
In 2023, we composted a little more than 18,200 pounds of food scraps, which is roughly the equivalent in size to two adult hippopotamuses and a stout juvenile hippo.
In 2024, we have a bigger, mammoth-sized goal – and we need your help to reach it.
Our Mammoth Mission
Our goal in 2024 is to collect 22,000 pounds, or 11 tons, of food scraps for composting.
Over 10,000 years ago in the ice age, mammoths roamed North America. These giants of the Pleistocene weighed somewhere between four to eight tons apiece.
This means with your help, we can compost the weight of two mammoths this year.
All we need is for you to bring the correct food scraps to one of the free farmers’ market drop-off sites.
Where You Can Bring Food Scraps to Compost for Free
You can bring certain food scraps to one of three farmers’ market drop-off locations:
South Madison Farmers’ Market (1602 S. Park St)
- Located at the corner of S. Park Street at W. Wingra Dr. across from Wingra Creek bike path
- Every Tuesday, 2:00pm to 6:00pm (available until October 29, 2024)
Eastside Farmers’ Market (202 S. Ingersoll St.)
- Located within McPike Park
- Every Tuesday, 4:00pm to 7:00pm (available until October 29, 2024)
Westside Community Market (505 S. Rosa Rd)
- Located in the Research Park area
- Every Saturday, 7:00am to 12:30pm (available until October 5, 2024)
What Scraps to Bring
The scraps you can bring to the drop-off sites are limited to raw fruits and vegetables, and their peelings, cores, stems, and so on. Egg shells, coffee grounds, and loose tea leaves are also acceptable. ‘
A list of items of what you can, and cannot, bring to the market can be found on the City of Madison food scraps website.
The list is limited because the scraps are taken to the Neighborhood Food Solutions farm where they are composted and used to grow produce that’s sold at the South Madison Farmers’ market.
Additional Information on Food Waste
More information about food waste, from prevention to composting to donation, can be found at www.cityofmadison.com/FoodScraps.
In the foreground is Robert Pierce. He is the farmer that receives the food scraps to compost at the Neighborhood Food Solutions farm. In the photo, he is standing at his booth at the South Madison Farmers' Market.
This is the South Madison market drop-off location, open Tuesdays 2:00pm to 6:00pm until October 29, 2024. A bucket is scraps is being weighed, and the weight recorded, before the scraps are added to the totes for transport to the farm.
A scrap user empties out a plastic bag of apple cores into the collection bucket at the Westside Community Market (open Saturday mornings, 7am to 12:30pm). The bag was then thrown into the trash. You can use whatever container you like to bring correct scraps to a market drop-off site - just be sure to bring the right scraps with you.
This is the Eastside Farmers' Market drop-off location, right near the path within McPike Park. It is available on Tuesdays from 4:00pm to 7:00pm until October 29, 2024. Bike your scraps on down!
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