College Composting Program to Expand A state grant will help pay for the work.
	A $132,250 state environmental program grant will pay for half of the expansion of Ithaca College's on-site composting facility. Announced last month by Gov. George Pataki, the Empire State Development 1998 Recycling Investment Program grant was among 24 distributed across the state. In all, more than $3 million was awarded to increase waste reduction and recycling efforts. At Ithaca, expansion will allow the College to compost all of the food scraps generated and collected on campus. A smaller-scale program --- one that has allowed the composting of about a third of the food scraps generated --- has been in operation since the fall of 1992. Conceived primarily as a way to combat steadily increasing landfill tipping fees, the composting program has helped slash the College's hauling costs, reduced stress on its equipment, and generated a useful by-product that has meant significant cost savings for a groundskeeping program that once relied heavily on imported topsoil. The program has also been of major benefit to the Ithaca community, which has seen the life of its landfill extended because of a reduction in the flow of waste to the facility. Those benefits will only grow with the expansion of the existing facility. Site planning and engineering work is underway, and completion of the $264,500 project is expected within a year. "Investing in the environment strengthens the economy," Pataki said in announcing the awards. "Our Recycling Investment Program helps make New York businesses more competitive, while also creating jobs and cleaner communities." The awarded projects develop technologies to enhance recycling productivity, increase statewide capacity for recycling and reduce solid waste going to landfills. They include investments in capital assets and infrastructure, research and development, and technical assistance to businesses and municipalities.