Five Reasons Why We’re Not Crazy About Compostable Food Ware  (Natural Resources Council of Maine)

Great news: Greenfield High School re-launched its compost program in the cafeteria on December 9, 2025!  This is being billed as a “pilot” and the rest of the schools should follow, though not for a few months. All of Greenfield’s schools operated successful composting programs from 2016/2017 until March 2020.  Together, these programs diverted about 5 tons a month from the landfill.   When cafeterias were not being used during the initial return from the Covid shut-down, composting did not re-start.  Greening Greenfield is offering some financing and assistance to make this happen (and did years of nudging).

See GPS Composting Initiative for more details, (under Youth).

Composting at home is easy and takes minimal space.  Entire websites are devoted to this topic, so we will not repeat the basics here, except to say that when you compost food scraps at your home, think of your compost bin as being on a low-cholesterol diet: no meats, no fats, no dairy products, and if you have a problem with animals, you might want to limit breads as well (but keep reading below!).  Put in all fruits and vegetables, plus leaves and yard waste, as long as it is in small pieces.

In Greenfield, indoor food scrap bins and outdoor compost bins are available at low cost from the transfer station. See city website here.  For other Franklin County towns, see FCSWMD website.

Want to collect ALL sorts of Food scraps?   They may be taken to the Greenfield Transfer Station, as can all sorts of yard waste for composting.  The city will deliver them to Martin’s Farm.  You may bring leaves, brush, and other yard waste directly to Martin’s yourself, but for now they are no longer taking food scraps there directly from residents.  And yes, they are otherwise still open, despite our earlier worries.

Greening Greenfield would love to see municipal curbside composting available to all residents some day.  In the meantime, private collectors may be able to provide you with collection of food scraps.  This, too, would include the meats, fats, dairy and bread.  See, for example, The Compost Cooperative.  Let us know if you are aware of other private collectors who should be listed here.   As an exciting aside, Compost Co-Op has recognized the principle of Housing First and has purchased and rehabbed a 3-unit house for workers.