Managers of municipal and institutional recycling and waste programs will be able to find collection resources for food scraps at Food Scrap Alley, a new dedicated section of the exhibit hall at COMPOST2016, the U.S. Composting Council’s (USCC’s) 24th Annual Conference, which will be in Jacksonville, Florida, Jan. 25-28, 2016.

More than 200 communities in the U.S. now collect or divert food scraps from their waste streams, according to the USCC.

“Our statistics show us that demand for information and service by cities and towns, hospitals and colleges is huge, and we want to provide the resources they need,” says Rod Tyler, president of the USCC. “We’re dedicating an entire aisle of our trade show floor to this phenomenon.”

Workshops and sessions at the conference also will provide case studies and current information for this growing area. Food waste collection is being driven by a need to reduce municipal solid waste generation, social pressures to decrease food waste and a recognition that food is a large source of organics that can be recovered as resources for declining soil quality and to mitigate pollution, the USCC says.

Attendees will be able to get information from other communities already collecting food scraps as well as bin manufacturers, recycling haulers, diversion educators, bin/tote washers, routing software, vendors of commercial kitchen processing equipment, community composters and consultants who work in this area.

More information about attending or exhibiting is available at www.compostingcouncil.org/compost2016.