2026 Organics Summit Presentations

Tuesday, April 14th

9:00 - 9:25 am: Welcoming Remarks

  • Dan Lilkas-Rain, President, NYSAR3

  • Jesse Kerns, Chair, NYSAR3 Organics Council

9:25 - 10:35 am: Updates from DEC and Its Partners (Kristine)

Hear from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation about their organics recycling program updates, including PFAS and biosolids management and the expansion of the NYS Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law. Then we’ll hear from the Development Authority of the North Country on how they use data submitted by designated food scraps generators to enhance compliance with the Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law. They will also be joined by Feeding NYS to talk about their food recovery program and the successes they’ve seen in supporting the NYS Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law. 

Speakers: 

10:35 - 10:45 am: NYS K-12 School Composter Contest Winner Announcement

NYSAR3 partnered with Ecodrum to promote the benefits of composting in schools and provide an Ecodrum 410 in-vessel composter to process cafeteria food scraps and use the finished compost on school grounds. We're excited to announce the winner during this time!

10:45 - 11:15 am: Exhibitor Show

11:15 am - 12:30 pm: Morning Breakout Sessions (75 minutes)

Community Composting in a Rural Landscape

This session will explore composting infrastructure in the rural landscape of New York State. Speakers will touch upon technologies they’re using, challenges and opportunities. 

Speakers:

Composting Facility Forensics

Is your composting facility all that it can be — or could be if you could get it sited, or approved by your City Council? Key to answering this question is data and how to make sense of it. Several scenarios illustrate the art and science of composting facility forensics:

  • Operational Sweet Spot: Am I making the right amount of product at the right speed for the lowest costs? How to do a materials flow analysis, calculate equipment use costs, and evaluate materials handling costs (e.g., loaders vs dump trucks)

  • Siting Navigation: What needs to be shaved off a square peg to fit a new facility into a round hole? How to gain municipal government approvals, when and where to make concessions.

  • Optimizing the Bottom Line: How should I track revenues and expenses to optimize my bottom line? Volume vs weight-based tip fees, calculating operating costs, organizing your bookkeeping chart of accounts, how to calculate value of inventory.

Speakers:

12:30 - 1:45 pm: Lunch

1:45 - 2:45 pm: Afternoon Breakout Sessions (60 minutes)

Rebranding compost: making compost a”peel”ing

How do we take food scraps and use them to spark interest all while making connections through compost? This session will explore the way people are rebranding compost to appeal to a wider audience through art, social media, design and educational events. In this session, you will hear briefly from a group of panelists from across the state before breaking into groups to brainstorm rebranding techniques and how to implement them in your own community or organization.

Speakers:

Challenges and Opportunities in Siting and Permitting Organics Facilities

Building and siting organics processing facilities (composting, anaerobic digestion, or emerging technologies) is a challenge. As more states adopt food waste bans, the demand for processing capacity continues to outpace infrastructure development. The panelists will explore the systemic barriers to scaling food waste and organics processing infrastructure. They will discuss common sources of resistance—from odor and truck traffic concerns to misunderstandings about environmental impacts—and identify how these barriers can be addressed through early engagement, transparent planning, and partnership-building. The panelists will review how policy, consumer demand, technology, and funding interact to stall or enable progress. From state-level regulations like New York’s mandate to the rise of subscription-based composting services, this panel offers a broad look at what’s working, what’s not, and how jurisdictions can develop viable infrastructure plans that align with equity and sustainability goals.

Public input is critical to a successful implementation of organics infrastructure. In this interactive session, the audience will be invited to weigh-in on challenges and strategies. What concerns do your communities raise? How can public education be improved? What messages, messengers, and formats work best when building support? The goal: to have attendees participate in live polling, case scenario voting, and discussion prompts to exchange effective outreach strategies.

Speakers:

  • Sue Lasdin Momberger (Independent Consultant) 

  • Christy Hurlburt (Viably) 

  • Marissa Segundo (Transformation PR) 

2:45 - 3:15 pm: Exhibitor Show and Refreshments

3:15 - 4:20 pm: Afternoon Breakout Session

Emerging Research

The Waste Data and Analysis Center (WDAC) at Stony Brook University analyzed five years (2021–2025) of statewide waste composition data to document food waste trends across residential, commercial, and mixed streams. Using standardized sampling and classification methods, the study presents observed variations in food waste percentages by facility type, program presence, and region. The 2025 dataset provides updated statewide results and contextual observations under current regulatory conditions. The results also offer insights into how food scrap programs and statewide policy may be affecting food waste trends. Findings contribute to a clearer understanding of food waste composition in New York and support data-driven planning for the future.

Speakers: 

  • Hailey Lee (Stony Brook University)

  • Kristina Chomiak (RIT) - presentation permissions not given

Motivating households to reduce - what the research tells us

The “Ending Food Waste Within a Generation” program is developing a national consumer wasted food reduction campaign with the goal of reducing household wasted food by 10% nationally and 20% in targeted communities by 2030. Designing an effective national campaign requires strategic decisions about focal audiences and behaviors, and about how best to structure and implement campaign activities. This session will summarize relevant evidence from the US and Canada, strengthened by insights from domestic and international experts. The findings will help to inform the Ad Council and the advertising agency that develops campaign messaging.

Speakers:

  • Brian Roe (Ohio State) - presentation permissions not given

4:30 - 5:30 pm: Municipal Organics Diversion Models Outside of NYS

This session will highlight municipal organics diversion models from the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Ontario, Canada.

  • Jennifer Vanhorssen and Dr. Andrea Riley-Mukavetz (City of Grand Rapids, Michigan)

    • Leveraging a community engagement framework to implement an equity-focused organics initiative.A key part of building a municipal compost operation planning at the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan is for our team to deliberately involve our community in several aspects of a food scrap collection and compost operations: from where to place drop off bins in our neighborhoods to ensure access to food scrap diversion, to where we need to bring compost to distribute equitably for community gardens and resident use.

  • Sahra Shojaei (Generate Upcycle)

    • Municipal Food Scraps Solutions Utilizing Public and Private Partnerships: More NY municipalities are seeking to implement food waste solutions, and most commonly, they are gravitating towards creating their own compost facility with residential drop-off programs. Generate Upcycle can offer a unique lens into the strength and benefits of public and private partnership solutions for municipal food waste management through its extensive work in Ontario, Canada, where we partner with the largest municipalities, such as Toronto, to pre-process and anaerobically digest their curbside collected food waste. NY does not have the same mandates as Canada, but key lessons from setting up their municipal SSO programs can be shared to better advise NY municipalities as they further plan and budget their future programs.

Speakers: 

 

Wednesday, April 15th

8:25 - 8:30 am: Morning Announcements

8:30 - 9:25 am: Financing Your Business 101

During this session we will demystify the process for private businesses when identifying streams of funding for their business (composting, anaerobic digestion, food scraps hauling businesses, etc.). From start-ups to those interested in private equity, this session will discuss the levels of financing best fit for your business at each stage of growth.
Speakers:

9:30 - 10:45 am: Morning Breakout Sessions

Managing Meat Residuals in the Circular Economy

Let’s keep it out of our landfills! This panel of presentations will discuss managing the unmanageable organic food processing materials that are challenging with success. Panelists will discuss managing roadkill, fish, offal, high protein liquids and live bird markets.  

Speakers:


Best Practices to Support Generators to Reduce, Recover and Recycle Food Scraps

Generators of food scraps often struggle to manage their transformation from easy disposal towards strategies to reduce generation or divert the material away from a landfill. The NYS Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law requires many businesses and institutions to figure this out, others are trying to change, knowing that it is a more sustainable approach for waste management systems. This panel brings together a range of experts who are working to support generators. The panelist will provide introductions to the work they are doing with restaurants, K-12 and other food services, residents and municipalities. This then will lead to a conversation about their successes, challenges, and strategies to overcome the challenges. Attendees will leave with an understanding of the best practices necessary to support generators in their efforts to reduce, recover and recycle more food scraps.

Speakers:

10:45 - 11:30 am: Exhibitor Show and Refreshments 

10:45 - 11:30 am: Student Poster Showcase

11:30 am - 12:30 pm: Organics Forum (60 minutes)

Join your colleagues for this interactive session to help brainstorm strategies and solutions for addressing some of the major challenges currently facing organics recycling in NYS. Facilitated roundtable discussions will focus on the three following topics: 

Advancing Organics Recycling on Long Island

See a short presentation on the current status of organics recycling on Long Island and then join a facilitated discussion to identify challenges and opportunities to advance organics recycling across Long Island. 

Speakers:

Compost Market Assessment

New York State is conducting a compost market assessment. We will use this interactive session to gather insights from attendees about the current state of compost markets in NYS, strategies for overcoming barriers to market growth, and ideas for future market opportunities.
Speakers:

12:30 - 1:45 pm: Lunch

1:45 - 3:00 pm: Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Biochar Production and Use as a Novel Soil Amendment

Biochar is not a new technology but one that continues to see increased awareness and interest from stakeholders for improving soil health and managing organics in New York State (NYS) and beyond. Biochar is a solid, carbon-rich material intended for soil application while providing numerous co-benefits. It is made through pyrolysis, the heating of organic material in no oxygen conditions, which stabilizes the carbon and makes biochar a long-lasting soil amendment. While biochar remains new to many, research, outreach, and use among farmers has been on-going for many years across NYS. This session will provide an overview of pyrolysis and biochar production and use across NYS as it relates to organics management, highlight a project focused on converting dairy manure to biochar, discuss large-scale on-farm biochar demonstration trials, and lastly research evaluating the impacts of and potential for adoption of novel soil amendments including biosolids biochar. This session is for anyone already working with biochar or interested in learning more about biochar in the context of organics management.
Speakers: 

Composting in a City Landscape

This session will explore composting infrastructure in a city environment. Speakers will touch upon their business models, challenges and opportunities.  

Speakers: 

3:00 - 3:30 pm: Exhibitor Show

3:30 - 4:45 pm: Afternoon Plenary (75 minutes)

Statewide Initiatives to Enhance Organics Recycling

Hear from the following organizations as they share some of their statewide initiatives to enhance organics recycling efforts across the State. 

  • NY Center for Organics Recycling and Education

  • NYS Pollution Prevention Institute

  • NYS Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation

Speakers:

4:45 - 4:50 pm: Closing Remarks and Acknowledgements