Southern Tier Reduces

06/13/2026

Scenes from the Zero Waste Project at Wisner Market in downtown Elmira! We are bringing composting, reusable dishes, and recycling to our beloved Wednesday market. Did you know you can bring your food waste from home, too?
💚 We are so lucky to have Joey from The Dish Truck (second pic with her crepe from Sweet & Savory Crepes) on board as our dish provider and head dishwasher. With experience from her work at Ithaca Farmer’s Market and Grassroots Music Festival, she is really showing us how to bring sustainability to the party!
🌿🌱 We’re also so honored to have Heather from Finger Lakes Compost🫑🥦🍉🌱🌺 providing us with composting service and expertise. And Karen, an absolute treasure to the community, as a lead volunteer.
See us all in the fourth pic — the Avengers of Sustainability!!
💪🏻 Want to volunteer at the market and get in on this Zero Waste Project? We’d love to have ya!! Please message us!

06/11/2026

Have you heard? 🌸Composting is the coolest way you can make an impact. You don’t even need a backyard. It’s basically recycling… for your food! ♻️

🌿 CCE has an upcoming workshop about composting at Elmira’s Steele Library on Monday, June 22 at 4:30.

Check it out and register: https://chemung.cce.cornell.edu/events/2026/06/22/composting-101 Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chemung County

Send a message to learn more

06/11/2026

So proud of this zero waste project at Wisner Market!
We have a waste problem, and rebuilding these systems is so important for our communities to flourish. Happy that it’s happening in Elmira.

06/06/2026

Love bringing my own cup to !! So grateful they are a BYO-friendly cafe. Support your local coffee shops!

06/02/2026

What a great story from Imran Ahmed! Looking forward to the FREE composting program tomorrow at Wisner Market. Elmira Downtown Development, Inc Finger Lakes Compost

ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) — A new composting drop-off program at the Wisner Market is giving people a simple way to recycle food scraps into soil while helping reduce waste in the community. Southe…

06/02/2026

ELMIRA! You’ve got a place to compost! Bring your food scraps to the Wisner Market in Wednesdays this summer. Look for the purple bin.
Your food scraps can turn into soil!

Benefits of composting:
1- Diverting food waste from your trash makes your garbage wayyyyyy less stinky.
2- the decomposition of food in landfills emits methane. You can curb greenhouse gases through composting.
3- you create healthy delicious soil that is returned back the earth and is wonderful for gardening.

In between markets, store your food scraps in a baggie in the freezer 🙂

Thank you Elmira Downtown Development, Inc Finger Lakes Compost for the collaboration!

05/26/2026

One of the biggest arguments I hear against backyard composting is that people think it will attract wildlife.

What’s worse? An animal checking out your compost pile or an animal ripping apart your garbage and strewing your trash all throughout your neighborhood?

These pics were taken in Elmira Heights this morning, where bear activity is normal and frequent. I counted at least 7 trash cans ripped apart, and all had food scraps.

How can composting mitigate these accidents? By diverting food scraps and organic matter from your trash and into a backyard composting pile, bears and other wildlife have very little interest in your trash.

Backyard composting has not been known to draw wildlife. Why? The natural decay isn’t as much of a draw as much as a trash can full of trapped smells.

Backyard composting also has the added benefits of 1) returning healthy soil back to you for gardening! 2) decreasing the methane release from your food scraps decaying anaerobically in a landfill.

I live right down the street from where this happens. I see bears frequently and have had no issues with my backyard compost piles.

Don’t know how to get started? Don’t think it’ll make a difference? Try it for a month and see how it feels. Put a container on your counter and empty it daily (or every other day if you’re like me) into a backyard pile. Keep your food waste of if your trash and see how you can 1) keep your trash smelling sooooo much better, and 2) decrease how frequently you have to change your garbage (which can also be cost-effective if you pay by the pound).

Don’t have a backyard? Check out - she does residential pickup in the area!

05/21/2026

Are you passionate about protecting local waterways and making a difference right here in Chemung County? Now’s your chance to get involved!
The Chemung Stream Team is looking for volunteers to help monitor water quality and learn more about our local watershed. Whether you’re a nature enthusiast, student, or just curious, this is a great opportunity to get hands-on experience and give back to the environment.

Info Session
June 10, 2026 | 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Monthly Monitoring Training
July 18, 2026 | 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
4H Building, 170 Fairview Rd, Horseheads, NY

Questions? Reach out to Joey Knouse at [email protected]
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/NYSTInfoSession

Come be part of something meaningful—protect our streams, learn new skills, and connect with others who care about clean water 💙
Sign up today and help keep Chemung County’s waterways healthy!

05/17/2026

Bring these items to the River Talk at Pirozzolo Park in Elmira on Monday. We’ll be talking about ways to go low-waste and reduce our impact.
We’re collecting these items for reuse:
💧Bottle caps
🎀 Ribbon scraps
🍞 Bread tags
🖍️ Broken crayons

I’m really excited to see you there! It’s looking like gorgeous weather. -Emilee

05/13/2026

Emilee is giving a talk about reuse and waste on Monday as part of Friends of the Chemung River Watershed's "River Talk" series!

Monday, May 18 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Pirozzolo Park in Elmira, NY. It looks like the weather is going to be AMAZING *knocks on wood*

We're going to discuss how we can move away from a system built around single-use, how we can reduce our impact on the environment, and free ourselves from marketing and throwaway culture. Let's do it!

It is FREE!! Please RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/river-talk-with-speaker-emilee-lindner-tickets-1989327627485?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwY2xjawRxWalleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFtVFRxeU1RZkI4c1ZiY3Zyc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsVKk8XKu9u6vlr0qHP9XZhmNVWvooAP0J-_EAt-9gVOUESRFQClBudHKawP_aem_C1rRcjIAWQ2akXb_bYxq8g