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Boston Convention Center Serves the Cake and Recycles It, Too!
The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC), the largest facility of its kind in the Northeast, is known for throwing quite a party. With facilities that can serve up to 9,000 people per meal, you can only imagine the amount of leftovers thrown away each day. That was the case until BCEC’s Executive Chef, Michael Tracy, took the lead in designing a food scraps composting program.
The program reduces food waste by targeting food scraps generated in the preparation of meals and prepared food that cannot be donated to charitable organizations. Instead of throwing this food away, it is placed in a 25-cubic-yard food waste container located on the loading dock.
When full, the container is hauled to a local farm, Rocky Hill Farms in Saugus, MA, where it is composted. The compost is eventually used as topsoil. Rocky Hill Farms estimates that BCEC contributes roughly one load of food residuals and other composting material per month, weighing almost 2.5 tons.
The results are astounding. Following the International Boston Seafood Show, held in March 2006, more than 22 tons of fish and organic fish products were sent for composting. The six major BCEC events which occurred from June-August 2006 resulted in an average of 14 percent of the total waste generated being diverted for composting. The largest amount removed and composted for one event was almost 26 tons.
A second component of the program is a trade show floor waste reduction program. Following a show, specially trained BCEC staff work to identify materials that can be either donated for reuse, recycled, or composted. Bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, pallets, and carpets are among the types of materials included in this program. One show was able to divert two tractor-trailer loads of organic and landscaping materials to local agricultural schools, including Essex Agricultural & Technical High School in Danvers, MA.
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA), owner
and operator of the BCEC, was recently recognized at the 2006
Brownfields Conference in Boston, MA with a "WasteWise
Reduction Leadership Award" 
for their successful organics composting and recycling program.
Susan Bodine, Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response, presented the WasteWise
Award at the 2006 Brownfields Conference to Arlene O'Donnel,
Acting Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Environmental
Protection; James Rooney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts
Convention Center Authority; and Mike Tracey, Executive Chef
of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. MCCA plans
to use lessons learned at the BCEC to further expand their
recycling and food waste programs at all their facilities.
The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center’s food scraps composting program exemplifies activities encouraged by our Resource Conservation Challenge within the national priority area of Municipal Solid Waste and Recycling.
For More Information:
- RCC national priority area: Municipal Solid Waste Recycling
- EPA's Food Scraps Web site
- Putting Surplus Food to Good Use (PDF) (2 pp, 1.1MB, about PDF)
- Donating Surplus Food to the Needy (PDF) (4 pp, 120K, about PDF)
- Don't Throw Away That Food: Strategies for Record-Setting Waste Reduction
- Managing Food Scraps as Animal Feed (PDF) (4 pp, 106K, about PDF)
- Waste Not, Want Not: A Guide for Feeding the Hungry and Reducing Solid Waste Through Food Recovery (PDF) (59 pp, 157K, about PDF)
- WasteWise