The MDI Food Waste Program was launched in September 2024 and has been running for 5 months: Here are some wonderful updates on the success and accomplishments of the first residential food waste compost initiative on MDI. We have openings left for new subscribers!
- As of 12/31/2024, 56 households are participating in our pilot project.
- Of those households, 23 are from Bar Harbor, 8 are from Mount Desert, 6 are from Southwest Harbor, 2 are from Hull’s Cove, 2 are from Seal Cove, 1 from Seal Harbor, 1 from Salisbury Cove, 1 from Bass Harbor, and 1 from Bernard. Another 11 households have off-island or out of state billing zip codes.
- Chickadee composted a total of 489,000 lbs (244.5 tons) of food scraps in 2024, for a total of 1,184,000 lbs in 2022.
- 130 households from the Blue Hill peninsula, Deer Isle, and Ellsworth are also composting with Chickadee.
- We are composting with 28 business, school, hospital, and non-profit partners across our region.
- According to the EPA’s WARM Model, the 244.5 tons we composted instead of landfilled resulted in lowering emissions by 160 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. This is the same as taking 34 passenger vehicles off the road. It is also equivalent to conserving 17,982 gallons of gasoline.
- All these food scraps, combined with wood shavings (from Jackson Lab) and wood chips will produce a total of 500 yards of high quality finished screened compost that will be for sale and distributed across Hancock County in 2025.