BUFFALO, N.Y. — The City of Buffalo is expanding a program to give people a place to get rid of their food scraps.
The "Scrap It" program launched last year and added some new locations over the summer, all in private locations.
The new addition at the corner of Elmwood and Bidwell is the first public drop-off for food waste in the county, and the goal is to compost it to use as fertilizer instead of just sending it to the landfill.
"Food waste comprises almost 15% of our waste stream. And we know that people throw out about one-third of all the food they purchase. So there's two messages here, really. We want people to be very cognizant so they're only purchasing what they need so they don't generate food waste, and when they do generate food waste they can collect it all week or however long it takes in a bucket like this and bring it to this public location and drop it off," said Susan Attridge, Director of Refuse and Recycling.
You can get one of those buckets free from the city. The number to call is (716) 851-5014.
They're looking for fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee grounds, tea bags, but not meat, yard scraps or other kinds of garbage.