Restaurants, grocery stores and schools in Teton County have a new incentive to reduce food waste.
A grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will give participants a 50% discount on monthly composting fees through May 2026.
Currently, composting food waste costs between $65 and $260 per month, depending on the size and amount of the waste. By subsidizing those costs, county officials hope to both ease the financial burden and expand participation in the program.
“This is a program that’s an economy of scale,” said Becky Kiefer, director of Teton County Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling. “The more food producers we can get to participate in the commercial curb-to-compost program, the cheaper it gets over time.”
The program started with a pilot in 2017, Kiefer said, in partnership with Grand Teton National Park and the concessionaires like Grand Teton Lodge Company and Signal Mountain Lodge. It was funded by Subaru’s Zero Landfill Initiative.
Currently, only 10 local entities participate in the compost program. Kiefer hopes the discount will encourage that number to grow to at least 50 over the next year.
Kiefer named the Ammangani, Teton Science School and Whole Foods Market as participants. None responded to requests for comment about the program.
The county also has a goal of diverting 60% of waste from the landfill by 2030.
Both are “ambitious,” Kiefer acknowledged.
“But I think that we have goals that our community can really get behind and support,” she said.
Food waste in landfills releases methane, a greenhouse gas about 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Diverting food waste to compost instead helps reduce those harmful emissions while creating nutrient-rich soil.
Kiefer said the county originally applied for the USDA grant to fund a machine that would help separate food waste from non-compostable material. But the department approved a shift in priorities to support direct programming instead.
In an atmosphere where federal grants are making more headlines for being cut, it’s a win for the community, Kiefer said.
“We are able to move forward with all of the components of our grant application that will benefit the commercial businesses in our community to reduce food waste,” Kiefer said. “So we feel really fortunate.
