By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – The Town Council appeared receptive to a community composting proposal at their meeting Tuesday night.

Clarkson University senior environmental engineering and health science major Brook Zeller encouraged councilors to adopt a composting plan as part of the town’s commitment under the state Climate Smart Communities initiative.

Zeller, a participant in Clarkson’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment, emphasized the benefits of reducing the volume of the landfilled waste stream by capturing food scraps and yard waste to contribute to a composting project similar to those already underway in Canton and elsewhere.

Potsdam would have a jump-start if Canton-Potsdam Hospital, SUNY Potsdam, Clarkson University, public schools and restaurants can be brought on board, Zeller said.

And one or more of those institutions could set aside the land for the project and possibly staff time, as St. Lawrence University has done in partnership with the village Canton with no outlay of funds.

Proponents in New York State are aiming to have institutions and restaurants that generate more than two tons of food waste a week to recycle that waste. A proposal in last year’s state budget to that effect that would have started in 2018 did not gain legislative approval, but the idea is till alive in Albany. A newer proposed law would take effect in 2021.

Among the benefits to municipalities, even small ones like Potsdam, would be to reduce disposal of the amount of waste in landfills, making compost which can be distributed in the community as soil conditioner and possibly generate income though sales, and even collecting waste gas for use as fuel.

Zeller said the recommended approach to beginning such a program would include starting with a pilot project that would cost little or no money; use pre-existing equipment, such as a town payloader; use the pilot project to master technique, such as frequency of turning and determining optimum moisture content; and then adding infrastructure and increasing waste streams .

Councilor Rose Rivezzi said such a startup project could have “a big educational component to drive interest and cooperation.”