A plan to revive composting on Martha’s Vineyard is starting to take shape after the lone public composting center shut down last year.
Island Grown Initiative, a nonprofit that previously ran the community compost program, is partnering with Vineyard towns and schools to install several small food waste recyclers across the Vineyard. Those involved hope that the new recyclers will cut down on the millions of pounds of trash trucked off-Island while also supplying farmers and gardeners with prized fertilizer.
Sophie Mazza, who previously led IGI’s community composting center before it was closed in September 2024, is spearheading the effort to install food waste recyclers that transform food waste into nutrient rich soil. The previous initiative ended after its pilot program on the IGI campus ran its course. The current effort aims to incorporate multiple sites.
Ms. Mazza has also targeted schools as ideal installation locations to not only reduce food waste, but also use as an education tool.
The Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School has ordered a food waste recycler and hopes to have it running by the end of the year. Charter school assistant director Scott Goldin said that the installation of the food recycler further enhances the composting education that is already part of the school’s curriculum.
“We’re really excited to continue making it holistic and embody the start-to-finish attitude and create those habits in our kindergarten students, who go home and tell their parents what they see at school,” he said. “It’s the purest form of community education.”
