We can hardly contain our excitement about the recent advances that Zero Waste Warren County and our allies has helped bring about, and the recognition our efforts are achieving.

Read on for news about funding for the county composting facility, the grant request for recycling infrastructure, the 2025 Repair Cafe schedule, and the grant for our new podcast program. Also Washington County residents: Learn how you can weigh in on the County's Local Solid Waste Management Plan.

(Zero Waste Warren County (ZWWC) is the citizens’ committee founded by the Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls in Fall 2019. We advocate for solid waste policies and infrastructure that follow Zero Waste principles. We aim to minimize the need to dispose of waste in landfills and incinerators. We also promote alternatives with the Glens Falls Repair Cafe and the food scraps collection at the Glens Falls Farmers Market. We welcome new members. Email me at tracy.frisch@gmail.com for an invitation to our next meeting or to find out how you can help.)

1) In late December, NYS’s Climate Smart Communities program funded Phase One of Warren County’s Food Waste Compost Facility with a $99,253 grant. As part of this grant, Warren County will enroll 500 households in a pilot project. Warren County will match the state grant.

At the start of the pandemic, ZWWC introduced the County to the idea of a county-run food waste composting facility in an April 2020 Zoom presentation by the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency. As Warren County Public Works was not prepared to start such a project at that time, Barbara Joudry, who was active with ZWWC, formed the Adirondack Compost Education Council to move forward with a central facility to compost food waste. ACEC looked into various options, including leasing County land and finding a composter to build and run a composting operation. After realizing that a county-run facility would be preferable, ACEC successfully advocated for the County to take the lead!

2) Last month, Warren County applied for a $1.4 million grant from the US EPA to construct and equip a central recycling facility. Once it's built, Warren County will transport source-separated recyclables collected at the 12 town transfer stations to this facility, where county employees will bale recyclables by type and aggregate them into tractor trailer-size loads. The baled recyclables will then be sold to recycling mills with assistance from a company such as Replenysh, which has “the world’s largest network of recyclable material buyers.”

The concept of a central recycling facility emerged out of ZWWC’s advocacy. Three or four years ago, we discovered that Warren County towns were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to “get rid of the recyclables" dropped off at their transfer stations, rather than deriving any income from them. We researched the requirements for selling recyclables and learned that once they are baled and aggregated by type (i.e. #1 plastic containers or corrugated cardboard), then buyers will send a tractor trailer to pick them up and will also pay good money for them. A field trip to the North Elba Recycling Center showed us how a municipality can do this. Replenysh estimates that the recyclables collected by the 12 town transfer stations in Warren County in 2023 had a market value of $560,000! Once a central recycling facility is built and operating, the towns will gain this new source of revenue.

3) In 2024, ZWWC partnered with Crandall Public Library to hold 3 Glens Falls Repair Cafes. We plan to hold 3 Repair Cafes in the library community room in 2025, tentatively on April 12, June 7, and Oct 18.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: We are always looking for people with repair skills (to serve as repair coaches at one or more Repair Cafe event) as well as non-Repair Coach volunteers, including one or more social media mavens to promote our Repair Cafes, and a few gooseneck lamps (as a loan or donation) to illuminate the worksites of the repair coaches. Please email glensfallsrepairs@gmail.com with your name, phone number, and how you want to help.

4) The Touba Family Foundation has awarded a $1,500 grant to CAAN for our latest project -- Zero Waste Warren County Makes Podcasts. To find out more about this project/to help, please contact me at tracy.frisch@gmail.com We anticipate releasing our first monthly podcast by late winter.