Daniel Herman: Sea Cliff, let’s be more scrappy

Imagine that you’re staring at your trash bin, annoyed that, yet again, you have to drag it to the curb. Before you close your container to ward off raccoons, you decide to dump about six gallons of water into it. When the sanitation workers haul it away the next day, the village will be charged more to deal with your gross and now wet garbage, your taxes will be higher as a result, but you’re going to do it anyway. Make sense?

This scenario seems absurd. Who in their right mind would pay for water to be hauled miles away and burned at an incinerator on the taxpayer’s dime?

We do it every day we roll those soppy bags to the street.

How? When your garbage gets picked up, it goes to a Waste Management (formerly Winter Brothers) transfer station in Glen Cove, and then to Westbury, to be burned at a Reworld incinerator. The ashes of your Amazon envelopes, that seasonal fruit you saw at North Shore Farms but didn’t like, and whatever your child decides to waste that day all get sent to a landfill in Brookhaven, in Suffolk County.

That landfill, though, is scheduled to close, and may be at capacity by 2028. What will happen to your trash then? It will probably end up in Central New York or Pennsylvania, or perhaps another place that’s much farther away than Suffolk County.

To haul those ashes across or beyond the state sounds expensive, right? That’s because it will be. Costs associated with your garbage will increase substantially, and so will your taxes, unless you believe that Waste Management and other haulers will generously absorb those additional expenses.

Here’s where a long-winded discussion gets to a polite request: Let’s investigate the feasibility of a municipal compost program in Sea Cliff.

Besides being environmentally responsible, composting makes sense for economic reasons. According to some estimates, 30 percent of Long Islanders’ waste is food scraps and yard waste. I’m sure our vegetarian friends living within our one square mile would argue that that percentage is even higher.

Go back to that scenario in which you dumped six gallons of water into your trash, and replace it with banana peels, watermelon rinds, and all the water-based weight you’re paying to be burned and dumped. Now imagine not doing that.

By composting, the village may be able to realize substantial savings in our municipal waste costs, which translates to potentially lower taxes. Although there would be an initial cost to set up the program, homeowners may stand to realize tax savings while also being green, brown or whatever color your produce looks like on a given day.

Village composting could take various forms. One easy option would be a drop-off center. The village could establish a location where residents could easily part with their food scraps and yard waste during the same hours they drop off items that didn't make the cut on Garage Sale Day. Maybe one day we can all have little brown bins so food scraps can be taken away curbside. One can only dream.

In fairness, a municipal composting plan needs to consider some hurdles. The village would have to staff a drop-off site, and would have to change the way the Department of Public Works operates. We also have a great village government, but it’s small, so more of us would have to help craft the logistics and execution of such a program.

I know that any ask is a big one in a municipality where residents are already busy with work and other obligations. I also know that Sea Cliff has more passionate volunteerism per capita than any other place on earth, and that we can find the right expertise among us to make municipally run composting a reality.

I urge any Sea Cliffer reading this to consider turning the shrugs, maybes and well-I-don’t-knows into something more concrete. Talking about the affordability crisis is hot right now, but talk — as opposed to keeping our food waste in the garbage — is cheap. If you come to an Environmental Conservation Commission meeting, engage your government officials or even just sign a petition, your burden will definitely be lighter than your tax bill.

I hope the idea of composting — as one potential solution for what seems to be an impending waste crisis — gives residents some food for thought, if not for action.

Dan Herman, of Sea Cliff, is taking part in the village’s community composting pilot program.