Four months after Island Grown Initiative closed the Vineyard’s only community composting center, the nonprofit has unveiled a new plan that uses advanced technology to process food waste from homes and schools.

Sophie Mazza, who led Island Grown’s food waste programming for years and more recently worked at Slough Farm in Edgartown, has returned to IGI with a three-year Vineyard Vision Fellowship to focus on food waste reduction and composting.

“The goal right now is to offer options for residents to be able to continue separating food waste at home and have some place to bring it,” Ms. Mazza told the Gazette this week.

Instead of a centralized composting location like the one at Island Grown in Vineyard Haven, which ran for eight years as a pilot program before closing in September, Ms. Mazza aims to establish a network of smaller food waste processors located at schools and local drop-offs.

The Vineyard produces about 6,500 tons of food waste a year. — Ray Ewing

“We spent a long time looking to find the perfect place — one centralized facility — and it just didn’t exist,” she said. “Now the big-picture plan is to decentralize.”

Ms. Mazza developed the composting pilot, curbside pick-up at businesses and other food-reclamation initiatives for Island Grown under her first Vineyard Vision Fellowship, awarded in 2016.

Island Grown co-executive director Noli Taylor hailed Ms. Mazza’s return to the mission.

“We are so happy to have Sophie back with us. She is amazing, and this is her passion area,” Ms. Taylor said.

Ms. Mazza is now working with Edgartown and Oak Bluffs governments and the Island Grown Schools program to secure funding and locations for a series of new-model food waste processors to help with the issue. The new processors produce an intensely concentrated soil amendment in 24 hours.

Enclosed in boxes, the rapid composters use electricity and micro-organisms to reduce and dehydrate food waste to 1/10 of its original volume in one day, without producing odors or attracting pests, Ms. Mazza said. 

The crumbly end product, she said, is handled differently from traditional compost and even has a different name.

“It doesn’t roll easily off the tongue, but it’s a nutrient-rich soil amendment,” Ms. Mazza said.

After curing for three weeks, the amendment is ready for use once it is mixed with four times as much soil, she said.

The rapid processors come in an array of sizes. Ms. Mazza estimated the costs — including installation — would be about $75,000 for a municipal unit that can handle 500 pounds of food waste a day. School units likely will cost about $20,000 to $30,000, depending on use, she said. 

Island Grown Schools is performing a waste audit at each campus this year to assess the need, before seeking grants and donations to fund the rapid processors, which Ms. Mazza said could be installed by the start of school next fall.

Children across the Vineyard had grown accustomed to separating their food waste before the pilot program ended, and some have questioned their school leaders about its absence, she said.

While Ms. Mazza focuses on municipal and school-based composting, the MV Organics Recovery Committee, which she co-founded in 2016, is working toward a solution for commercial food waste. The committee is currently working with Oak Bluffs town leadership on a federal grant for solid waste and recycling infrastructure, and has a potential location in mind, director Woody Filley said this week.

Martha’s Vineyard creates about 6,500 tons of food waste a year, according to the Island Grown announcement of Ms. Mazza’s return. In the absence of a reclamation program, most of this compostable waste is hauled to the mainland with the rest of the Island’s refuse.