The Food Security Division works hard to be a responsible business in all it practices and that includes our waste. A main part of our job is food recovery, which means we often get produce in large quantities that was headed for the landfill. We distribute the good food and compost the rest. We have teamed up with our next door neighbors Ancora Coffee Roasters; they contribute the chaff (the outer shell of the coffee bean which is removed in the roasting process) to our composters. Composting turns food waste to a useful form in a time-efficient process. The humus produced is a valuable product for community gardeners.

CAC uses an Earth Tub in-vessel composting system manufactured by Green Mountain Technologies. CAC’s Community Gardens Division will use the fertile, organic matter produced through the project to enrich the soils of CAC-maintained community gardens that promote food security, of which there are 14 in the city of Madison.

The Wisconsin DNR has recommended that the U.S. EPA ban the disposal of food waste at municipal solid waste landfills. Because landfills are not conducive to the needs of decomposition, decomposition slows down and produces methane, one of the gases that affect global warming. Landfilled food waste produces more methane gas than any other solid waste product. As landfills approach their capacity and available land decreases for new landfills, an urgent need exists for alternative solutions.

In Dane County alone, 50 million pounds of food waste from Dane County ends up in landfills each year—over 24 million pounds of which is produced by restaurants. By most estimates, food residuals make up approximately 15-20% of waste being landfilled, yet are the least recovered waste.

A USDA report estimates that 130 pounds of food per person each year ends up in landfills, an amount that could feed 49 million hungry people in the United States.