Becker County outlines summer rollout for organics collection, aims to divert food waste from incinerator

Becker County Environmental Services officials told the Detroit Lakes City Council that a grant from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) will fund a pilot organics collection program slated to begin this summer.

Steve Skoog, Environmental Services Director for Becker County, said, “Recently we got a grant from the MPCA to start organics, a collection of organics. We're going to start composting or collecting them so they can be composted.” The county presented program design, estimated waste volumes and a schedule during the council meeting.

The program aims to reduce the amount of food and other organic material entering the county waste stream. Becker County staff reported the county generates approximately 21,000 tons of garbage annually and that about 10,000 to 11,000 tons of that currently go to PERM for incineration. Officials said roughly 25% of the current waste stream is organic material; the county’s short‑term goal is to divert between about 5% and 10% of the total waste stream into composting.

County staff described a phased rollout that begins with free community drop‑off sites and collection using the county’s existing container‑service trucks. The plan posted for council included four public drop sites within the city and additional drop sites in neighboring municipalities. For residents, the county will supply pails and compostable liners; users bring a filled liner to a drop box and staff will pick up and transfer the material to a permitted composting facility. Collections are planned weekly at launch, with the schedule subject to change if demand requires twice‑weekly service.

The county also described outreach to local businesses and schools. Becker County intends to offer a business pickup program — county staff will provide containers and collection service and will meet with interested businesses to implement service before the summer tourism season. The grant application includes funds to equip schools with stainless steel sorting stations to enable a school pickup program.

County officials said the initial plan calls for the collected organics to be transported to an existing permitted composting facility. If the program grows substantially, the county said it would consider building its own composting facility north of Detroit Lakes.

Officials said the MPCA paperwork was nearly complete and the program team is seeking matching grants and donations to supplement the MPCA award. The presentation closed with county staff saying the plan will come back to council for formal approval at a future meeting before the program begins.

Council members asked about storage and service frequency; staff said they would build sheltered enclosures for drop boxes to keep snow and rain out and will adjust pickup frequency as needed.

The presentation did not include a final cost to individual users; county staff said there would be no charge for residents using the community drop sites at program launch.