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READFIELD — The town will launch a food recycling program in partnership with Fayette and Wayne on July 24.
Kickoff events will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. at the Readfield Transfer Station, featuring Maine Sen. Craig Hickman, town officials and representatives from Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine.
Free ice cream and compost container giveaways will be held throughout the day. DEP organics specialist Mark King will host a food recycling and composting class at the Maranacook High School campus, with free home composting bins for registered attendees. Sign up at the transfer station or contact the town at 207-685-3144 or info@readfieldmaine.org.
The new food recycling site is the transfer station, on Recycle Road. Residents of Readfield, Wayne and Fayette will be able to drop off their food waste in a designated area. The food waste will be incorporated into the yard waste recycling operation to provide high-quality compost for town residents, as well as municipal landscaping projects.
More than 30 percent of the food produced in the United States is never eaten. This discarded food is the largest single component of Maine’s waste stream and increases disposal costs for Maine residents, contributes to community food insecurity, and wastes the water, energy and other resources used to produce that food. Maine towns and cities are moving to reduce costs, address hunger, and capture the resources contained in food waste through food recycling programs — while also helping the state reach its waste reduction goals.
The Food Rescue MAINE program, with the slogan “Maine Food – Too Good to Waste” is spearheaded by a team of faculty and students from the Mitchell Center and several Maine colleges and universities. It is funded in part by the DEP’s food waste diversion program. Food Rescue MAINE assists Maine communities with food waste reduction, food recovery and food recycling projects to demonstrate their “triple-bottom-line” benefits — saving money, feeding people and protecting natural resources.
Readfield, Fayette and Wayne are the latest central Maine communities to launch a food recycling program in conjunction with Food Rescue MAINE, following Waterville’s launch in June and Winslow’s launch in April. Portland also launched five sites on Earth Day this year.
As part of the Food Rescue MAINE campaign, the Mitchell Center team has developed a variety of materials to build awareness of and support for community food rescue and recycling programs. Available resources include a new web portal, social media platform, and a library of recycling information, signs, fliers and videos. A school outreach program is also being piloted at select Maine elementary and high schools.
