FARMINGTON – Maine’s first municipally organized compost operation, Sandy River Recycling Center, is wallowing in swill – and happy to be there. So happy, in fact, they’re about ready to look for more.

After a successful first year of operation, composting the likes of carrot, onion and potato peals – called “pre-consumer food waste” – they are hoping to expand to take in “post-consumer food waste,” or the food people leave on their plates, according to SRRC’s Ron Slater.

Last year, University of Maine at Farmington composted 24,500 pounds of food-preparation waste, said Chris Kinney of Aramark, the food service that provides for UMF. That’s at least 70 pounds per day – and this is before phase two, which will start this fall with food waste from after meals.

Two years ago, the center received $31,000 in grant money from the state to start a pilot regional composting program using food waste from the University of Maine at Farmington, state Planning Office composting guru Sam Morris said. He and Mark King, of the state Department of Environmental Protection, were working together on a food-waste composting initiative, and thought the UMF area would be a good place for a pilot project.

“Western Maine has been under utilized (in DEP composting programs),” King said. “It hasn’t gotten any attention. We’ve always kind of focused in Portland.”

With UMF as his alma mater, though, King wanted to do something for the Farmington area.

Now, Farmington has the only composting program run as a joint effort by state, town, and university officials, and has become a model for other composting programs around the state.

Composting food waste – especially waste coming from big outfits like universities and hospitals – is a way to save energy, help the environment, and create a salable product all at once.

“There’s little use in taking food waste to the landfill, where it’s lost, or the incinerator, where it wastes energy,” Morris said. “Instead, (with composting) we catch it at the point of generation and divert it to a higher and better use.”

Gardners love compost, which nourishes and evens out soil, making sandy soil retain more water and lightening up heavy, clay-filled soil, King said. The SRRC’s compost will be given back to UMF, the town, and possibly Franklin Memorial Hospital to be used instead of fertilizer for at least the first few years, Slater said.

Franklin County’s compost might stay in the area, but it can also be sold, and for a pretty penny. The financial gain – spending less on trash disposal and getting either free compost, or making money from it – is one way of selling the concept, King said. “Everybody has a bottom line,” he said. “So if we can save money and create a product worth promoting, then that’s cool.”

If local people can find a way to make it happen, the composting project might be able to get even bigger. “If there’s a way, logistically, to have residents involved, I think it would be great,” Farmington Town Manager Richard Davis said. “Many folks do (already) compost their leaves and yard waste.” The reason many people don’t compost food waste is that it can attract rats and bugs, he said. “It might work better if people were able to bring that type of waste to a centrally located facility. I think there might be a way to do that – if the details can be worked out.”