Summary

Amy Mesirow, from Falmouth Jewish Synagogue convened a meeting in October 2025 with 10 other faith community representatives. To summarize, we’re all at different stages of implementing composting in our faith community. We learned the following:
- identifying and/or inspiring a few congregants who are passionate about composting is necessary for a successful program.
- education is key, both in the introductory phase and ongoing to teach congregants about the benefits of composting as well as the specifics (what goes in which bin.). Mary Ryther, Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator for the Town of Falmouth is an excellent resource and speaker; mary.ryther@falmouthma.gov.
- We need to move congregants and leadership from looking at the added cost of composting to looking at the cost to our environment of NOT composting.
- using reusable dishes and running them through the dish washer is optimal; compostable tableware cost about 35% more than non-compostables and quickly fill up a compost bin.
- options for disposal of compostable matter collected include:
a) contracting with Black Earth ($120 for a 6-month residential contract, but the bin is small. Visit https://blackearthcompost.com/commercial/ to get a quote for a commercial contract),
b) creating and maintaining your own composting pile on your property (W. Falmouth Quakers does this; here’s a link to a video Steve sent me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqkSrvyl4vM), or
c) having volunteer congregants take it to the transfer station or a Black Earth location.
- Signage on a kitchen food waste pail and on the compost bin that sits next to your trash can is key; photos are optimal. As you progress with your composting program, it makes more sense to label the regular trash can (rather than the compost bin) with the few items that belong there.
- finding enough volunteers to stand by the compost bin at events or re-sort trash afterwards is challenging; education regarding what goes where is difficult. The ideal is to have everything be compostable, so there’s no need to sort and no need for volunteers.
- we need to find ways to involve our youth.