From Waste to Resource

Welcome to Saratoga’s First Community Compost Program!

Pitney Meadows Community Farm, in partnership with Sustainable Saratoga, is proud to announce the launch of a new city-funded Community Compost Program located on-site at the Pitney Meadows Community Garden in Spring 2025. This initiative is designed to reduce food waste, educate residents on sustainable composting practices, and create a closed-loop system that benefits both our environment and local food systems.

The initiative is modeled after the successful Bethlehem Municipal Compost program and in consultation with ANCA Compost for Good and reflects a growing movement toward food sovereignty, sustainability, and circular systems.

Step 1: Sign Up for the Interest List
Fill out a short form to express your interest in joining the program. This is not a commitment, but it guarantees you'll receive registration info.

Step 2: Register When Notified
We’ll email everyone on the interest list with a registration link and time. The first 50 families to complete registration will be accepted into the pilot.

Step 3: Attend a Compost Training
Before dropping off any food scraps, you’ll attend a required training session led by Sustainable Saratoga. The training will cover: what you can and can’t compost, how to store and prepare food scraps at home, how the drop-off system works, and why composting matters for Saratoga Springs

Step 4: Start Collecting Your Scraps
At home, collect acceptable food scraps in a container of your choice, or with our provided compost bin you will receive when you join the Community Compost Program. You can keep it on your counter, under the sink, or in your freezer.

Step 5: Drop Off at Pitney Meadows
Once trained, you can bring your scraps to our on-site composting system by using your code.

Step 6: Your Scraps Become Soil, Closing the Loop
Food scraps are mixed with browns (wood chips, leaves, straw) and rotated regularly to produce nutrient-rich compost. The finished compost is used to enrich the soil in Pitney Meadows' Community Garden and agricultural fields, helping grow fresh produce for local families, food pantries, senior centers, and shelters. You’re directly supporting food access and local agriculture!

40% of the food produced for human consumption in the US goes to waste, and over 90% of that ends up in the landfill. Composting is a natural process of recycling food waste into a nutrient rich soil amendment. In landfills, food waste slowly decomposes in the absence of oxygen and produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with far more global warming potential than carbon dioxide.

The method of composting you see on the Farm is a neighborhood-scale system called vertical drum composting. This system, designed by Compost for Good, is the most popular option at the organizational level for its capacity, scalability, and affordability. 

"Composting is a crucial environmental initiative, and we are proud to support Pitney Meadows through Participatory Budgeting—the most democratic process in the City's budget, where community members have the power to vote for the projects that matter most to them." - Commissioner Minita Sanghvi

A heartfelt thank you to the City of Saratoga Springs, the Participatory Budgeting Committee, and everyone who voted for our Community Composting project in the most recent Participatory Budgeting cycle. Your support is turning sustainability into action!