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“Most food waste ends up in a landfill, where it readily decomposes and becomes a greenhouse gas,” said Gregory Gelewski, OCRRA Recycling Operations Manager.

And food waste is a significant percentage of the waste stream.

“For Onondaga County, it's between 13 and 14 percent of the waste stream. That's our commercial and municipal waste streams. So you're looking at 13-percent of 350,000 tons, that's quite a bit,” said Gelewski.

Food waste in Onondaga County can be burned and produce some energy, but the Resource Recovery Agency is trying to produce a more useful product.

“We're actively pursuing food waste composting. We are doing it on a small scale right now producing a thousand cubic yards of food waste compost a year on top of our regular yard waste composting operation. Our goal is that by 2015, we want to compost over ten thousand tons of commercially generated food waste,” said Gelewski.

Here's what the composting operation looks like with a capacity for piles that are eighty feet long, one hundred twenty five feet wide and eight to twelve feet high.

At the bottom of this pile is a layer of rough cut wood to help with air circulation, then there's the mixture of three parts yard waste to one part food waste piled up nearly nine feet high and then it's covered with finished compost to keep the heat and the odor inside.

“Out here right now you don't smell any food odors and we have over 47 tons of food waste in the system right now,” said Gelewski.

These generators kick on every few minutes to push air through the pipes and through the compost pile making the temperature inside the pile hit over 155 degrees producing a compost that's safe to use and turning food waste into compost in thirty to forty five days.