Materials / Compost
Compost
Food scraps are composted on site and the finished compost is free to residents. Nine tons in 2023, tiny next to what the town generates. Never leaves town, by design.
Where it goes
Solid border: confirmed. Dashed: likely. Dotted: open.
The numbers
- Food waste, 2023
- 9 tons, $0 Town data
- Price of the alternative
- Trash costs per bag: ten 15-gallon bags $11.50, ten 33-gallon bags $23.00 Town data
- Room to grow
- Nine tons is a small fraction of what a town this size generates Inference
What the records show
The center takes separated food scraps, non-meat and non-dairy, composts them on site, and gives the finished compost, yard loam, and wood chips away free behind the building. Nine tons in 2023.
Separation is voluntary by design, and the lever is the trash bag. Recycling and composting are free; trash costs per bag. Every pound of scraps kept out of the bag is money in the resident's pocket.
Food scraps are the cleanest, most immediately usable source of fertility a household generates, and they only stay usable if they never touch the trash bag. Mixed in, they're contaminated and gone, off to a landfill making methane instead of soil.
Nine tons is tiny relative to what the town generates. Composting capacity is the growth opportunity, and the state is now pushing the same direction with a food waste disposal ban and infrastructure grants. See the state context page.
Sources
- #1 Recycling center page. Town of Peterborough Town data
- #3 Services column on free materials at the recycling center, March 24, 2026. Monadnock Ledger-Transcript (Huberman and Smith) Press