Recycle Your Turkey Carcass

Recycle Your Turkey Carcass

You always say you're going to make turkey soup, but really, are you going to make turkey soup?

Hang on to your Thanksgiving carcass, and bring it to the Wintertime Farmers' Market on Saturday, Nov. 26. The folks at ecoRI News will recycle your turkey bones to a group that could really use them: local pigs. 

Last year, the ecoRI Green Team and mindful farmers' market patrons kept 70 turkey carcasses (about 140 pounds) out of the state landfill. They hope to better that mark this year.

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Drop-off details

Thanksgiving turkey carcasses will be collected from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at the ecoRI News table at this Saturday's farmers' market at Hope Artiste Village, 1005 Main St. The remains of your holiday bird will be picked up by Vinagro Farms, ground up and fed to the farm's pigs.

"Eat well and local this Thanksgiving. Pick the turkey clean, use it to make stock, and then bring it to the market so we can return it to the Rhode Island food cycle," ecoRI News executive director Frank Carini said.

In October 2010, ecoRI News began a food-scrap collection program at Providence-area farmers' markets, whereby individuals bring household food scraps to ecoRI's collection kiosk. At the end of the market, the organization hands off the collected scraps to a local farmer who, in turn, takes those scraps to his/her compost pile on the farm.

ecoRI News began the program to educate people about the imperative of diverting nutrient-rich food waste from the state's shrinking Central Landfill in Johnston. Since ecoRI News began collecting food scraps, the program has diverted nearly 10,000 pounds of food waste from the landfill, including about 500 pounds of Halloween pumpkins this year.