BROOKINGS — A “can do” attitude is always a great thing to have, and it’s exactly what Brookings is showing as it becomes the first community in South Dakota to take part in a food waste composting pilot program.
“Airspace is the lifeblood of any landfill,” Solid Waste Manager Charlie Kuhn told city councilors at their Sept. 23 meeting. “Keeping food waste out of landfills can extend the life of a landfill for many years.”
The program will launch in mid-October and continue through October of next year. The city responded after the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources reached out to the city’s solid waste division.
A mix of collection bins, buckets and compost bags are key to the effort, which will be based out of the Citizens Campus at the Brookings Regional Landfill. The bins will be placed at four sites in Brookings:
• Street Department: 127 Seventh Ave.
• East Fire Station: 607 20th Ave.
• South Fire Station: 2519 Main Ave. S.
• Landfill: 4101 30th St.
The buckets, each at 2 gallons apiece, will be given away on Oct. 4 and Oct. 18 at the Brookings Farmers Market. People can get the buckets in exchange for providing their names and addresses, Kuhn said. This is so the city can get a rough idea of how many residents — or at least buckets — are participating in the pilot program. The buckets will also be available for purchase at the landfill at $10 each, and there’s no purchase limit.
Meanwhile, the compost bags — which can hold 2½ gallons each — will be obtainable at the bin sites at no cost.
“It’s a plastic material that just can go right into the bin with the food scraps and they break down incredibly quickly,” Kuhn said, responding to an inquiry from Mayor Oepke “Ope” Niemeyer on the composition of the bags.
The program is expected to cost the city a total of $2,500, with lab testing being provided by the state.
Councilor Nick Wendell asked, among other things, why Brookings was selected to take part in the pilot program.
“Before I started, the city had looked into it — starting with food waste composting — and the state basically remembered that and just knew it was something that our community had looked into pretty in-depth at one time, and thought that we would just be open to starting it up again,” Kuhn said.
“Thanks to you and your staff for answering the call,” Wendell said. “I know it’s going to be a lift, but I think it’s something that the community is interested in. I know there’s demand, and I’m excited to see where this year goes.”
“I’m excited, too,” Kuhn said. “At the end of (2026), we’re going to re-evaluate everything to see if it’s something that we can implement on a permanent basis, or if we can expand it, or if we need to shrink it down or just what that kind of looks like at the end of the year.”
The operations plan for the pilot program calls for solid waste division staffers to empty the collection bins on a weekly basis. A separate area at the Citizens Campus at the landfill will be used, where the food waste will be tracked, mixed, turned and tested.
Councilor Holly Tilton Byrne joined the conversation as well, noting that about 10 to 12 years ago, before her time on the City Council, she was a member of the Brookings Sustainability Council, and it was then that they reached out to the state to ask about food composting regulations. There were a lot of such rules at the state level, which prevented the effort from moving forward in the past.
“To come 10-12 years later and see that they remembered those conversations that we had and reached out to us to get something started just, I think, is really exciting and kind of seeing this come full circle,” she said.
Tilton Byrne further inquired about compost availability at the landfill’s Citizens Campus, whether it would be like yard waste — where it can be picked up and go into gardens — or if it would be treated separately.
“It’ll be in the same area, but it will be separate from the normal yard waste compost,” Kuhn said. “We won’t be doing anything with it in terms of handing it out to residents until it’s completely done. A lot of that indecision on what we do with it is going to depend on how much we actually have.”
He continued, “Since it is going to be lab-tested and a little bit of a higher-quality compost, we just don’t know exactly what that end use is going to be with it.”
Kuhn noted that while there are state rules regarding how the compost can be used, the state is waiving them for the time being to let the city run the pilot program and see how participation is. If the city goes beyond the one-year pilot phase and makes the program permanent, then the state’s regulations would kick back in.
City documents further made the case for composting food waste, noting that, in addition to extending the life of the landfill, it will also enhance soil. This is because composting:
• Boosts the nutrient content of soil
• Reduces pests and disease
• Improves soil structure
In closing, Public Works Director John Thompson said if the pilot program is ultimately successful, the goal is to go back to the state for funding to obtain a food waste anerobic digestion system for processing purposes.
“At that point, then we need to figure out — we know where the feedstock is coming from, not only from the residents, but also hopefully from restaurants and such,” he said. “Then it’s where that post-product goes to, because you have a lot of methane that is produced that you can turn into energy, and then you can also have very good composting.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@cmpapers.com.
