(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Waste Reduction Center in Cedar Falls is launching a program to help smaller communities in the Midwest use composting to improve water quality. The Center’s Jennifer Trent says they will work with seven communities across four states to help build small compost facilities. “We’re going to be training them how to take the compost that they manufacture and how to use that to protect local water sources,” she says. They can use the compost they get from those facilities. “Compost has the ability to filter out pollutants and to also break down pollutants,” Trent says. The towns in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois with populations of fewer than 25-hundred people sit on E-P-A designated impaired waterways. Trent says the goal is to get those waters off the impaired list.

“So when water enters into a river, if you have strategically placed compost, you can eliminate pollution from entering the water source,” she says. She says another benefit could be reducing the amount of food waste sent to community landfills. Education workshops will start in May and run through August.