Winslow Pilot Spotlight

Background

Through our experience collaborating with the town of Winslow, we have been able to put together a social media food system education toolkit to be used and customized by towns across Maine. 

Getting Started

Once the food recycling transfer station had been set up at the Winslow Public Library, the town needed a way to get the word out to their residents. Because Winslow town residents had grown accustomed to communicating with the town management of Winslow through their very active social media page(primarily through Facebook), it only made sense that Winslow begin posting about food recycling- and informing their residents through this channel. 

To get started, we had to figure out how to best advise Winslow to use their community social media to promote food recycling. After several meetings and many email threads, we finally figured out how to best serve Winslow’s needs. 

Results

After getting Winslow’s social media started, we realized it would help Winslow, and the other towns that we work with, if they had a toolkit of sample posts to get their feet off the ground in the beginning of their food recycling journey. Take a look below at some of the posts that Winslow made using this toolkit!

Screenshot of groundhog day themed Winslow town social media post
Winslow Facebook Post for Groundhog's Day
Screenshot of Memorial Day themed Winslow town social media post
Winslow Facebook Post for Memorial Day
Screenshot of Valentine's Day themed Winslow town social media post
Winslow Facebook Post for Valentine's Day
Click here to view the full community social media toolkit
image of a man browsing a news page on his iPad

Community Challenge Spotlight

How can a small, rural community build-up their food waste volume to make landfill diversion cost effective?

The town of Winslow has a small population, and this created unique challenges for their food recycling program. Agricycle services the Winslow transfer stations, so in order to make their pickup fees worth the money, they had to find alternative waste streams to add to their residential transfer stations. In order to do this, Winslow chose to combine waste streams with their schools to add necessary waste streams to their transfer station waste stream. 

Recommended Actions

  • Use your community’s preferred communication tools to build awareness of the food waste solutions – e.g., social media and live events

  • Work with a community partner to help community with recycling, outreach, and education