Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** kane county illinois often…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** kane county illinois often considered a far chicago suburb is actually a diverse place with large urban centers smaller suburban towns and villages and outlying rural areas. Unfortunately the diversion of non-edible food waste generated in kane county away from landfills is still in its infancy. There has been some progress towards robust composting material from residences. Landscape waste has been banned from landfills in illinois for decades and many residential waste hauling contracts now allow residents to mix food scraps with yard waste for composting during the eight-month collection season. However composting among large institutional food waste generators in the county is lacking. Generally speaking there is no culture of composting in the county meaning that existing programs are likely underutilized by the public. The first goal of the proposed project is to begin composting programs for inedible food waste at four large facilities in the county: 1) kane county's adult justice center; 2) northern illinois food bank; 3) northwestern medicine field; and 4) advocate sherman hospital. The second goal is to help fill gaps in the availability in residential composting by offering a seasonal public drop-off. Our third goal is to nurture a culture of composting through a kane county composts public education and marketing campaign which will become a sister brand to the already popular and widely recognized kane county recycles brand and campaign. Successful implementation of this project will help normalize composting in the county and will send a clear message to private sector food scrap haulers which are based close to chicago and have sometimes been reticent to service outlying areas that there is a market for their services in kane county. The fourth and final goal is to improve small agricultural producers' and community gardens' access to compost by coordinating a give-away event. These goals are very strongly aligned with the primary cfwr goals of reducing food waste diverting food waste from landfills and increasing local producers' access to compost. In addition to meeting cfwr goals this project will help the county make major progress toward meeting the goals of its solid waste management plan and recently adopted climate action implementation plan. We feel strongly that due to the ambitious scope of our proposal and the broad reach of some of our partner organizations serving the whole county and beyond the project will impact every ZIP code in kane county. However tasked with identifying a few we list the following:60123 elgin IL (where advocate sherman hospital is located) urban parts of this ZIP code are disadvantaged according to the U.S. EPA climate and economic justice screening TOOL60134 geneva IL (where northern IL food bank northwest medicine field and the kane county recycling center are located) primarily suburban not a disadvantaged area but the food bank works to address hunger in disadvantaged AREAS60175 ST. Charles IL (where the kane county adult justice center is located) primarily suburban and rural not disadvantaged but the AJC serves disadvantaged communitieswe are committed to making sure that the educational and informational components of this program are accessible to the majority of kane county residents by providing spanish language translation on all major outputs. We are also committed to demonstrating success during the grant period in order to secure ongoing funding to maintain diversion and education efforts.