IFSCC is grateful to Cecelia (Dede) Carman of the McHenry County Environmental Defenders for this guest blog post providing an overview of curbside composting options for residents of that county. Thanks Dede!
If IFSCC members and committee volunteers would like to share information on the IFSCC blog about opportunities and challenges in their part of IL, please reach out to illinoiscomposts@gmail.com.
McHenry County residents share many experiences, but variables can impact how “green” you can be. We all have a hauler that takes our garbage and recycling but what else can they do for us? If you are lucky to have Flood Brothers or Prairieland you should be offered curbside composting. But do they automatically provide this service? The answer is no. Lake in the Hills residents are allowed to place all their food scraps into their yard waste bin or they call Flood Brothers to rent a bin for $2/per quarter. Cary also uses Flood Brothers but they do not have this service. Why? The town just didn’t sign up for it. I think our Cary residents need to speak to their Village Board. Prairieland is offering curbside composting in every town they serve. Crystal Lake tried to take it one step further and offer year round service. However this has not come to fruition yet.
For our McHenry residents who use Groot, you have an interesting dilemma. There are six service areas and they all do not provide the same services. The towns of Volo, Round Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove do have curbside composting but the towns of Algonquin and Barrington Hills do not. It’s not known if these towns can change their service area but they can change their hauler.
For the rest of McHenry County, residents are serviced by Waste Management, Marengo Disposal, MDC or Lake Disposal. None of these companies offer curbside composting. During current negotiations between Woodstock and MDC, MDC officials have said they have no future plans to allow food scraps in their yard waste. This is very disappointing as they want the municipality to sign a 10 year contract. The Environmental Defenders of McHenry County are trying to combat this issue by providing a food scrap drop off site during Woodstock’s summer farmers market. WasteNot Disposal graciously provided this service for free and we are working with them to provide a permanent drop off site.
Reducing our waste by composting is high on the list for our McHenry County Environmental Defenders Waste Reduction Team. We would like to see all our towns be provided with curbside composting to make it easy and convenient for everyone. Many of us have new elected officials and I challenge you to email or attend a Village Board Meeting and ask, can our town have curbside composting? Now, curbside electronic recycling is a whole other topic we can tackle next time.
Grow, Eat, Compost, Repeat!
~Cecilia Carman, Education Committee Member, Environmental Defenders of McHenry County
Links to learn more: Environmental Defender of McHenry County: https://mcdef.org/