MACHIAS – A meeting to discuss composting the food waste from the Washington County Jail and the Downeast Correctional Facility at Bucks Harbor will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 3, in the Washington County commissioners’ meeting room.

Nancy Oden of the Clean Water Coalition said the plan is to collect food waste from the jail and prison; take it to a suitable site for composting; have inmates and volunteers build raised garden beds out of thrown-away or donated lumber and slabs; fill the raised garden beds with the compost; and grow vegetables for the jail and prison in the raised beds.

After the gardens have food growing in them, which should be by next spring, Oden hopes to develop community gardens around Washington County. The idea is to have several places around Washington County where emergency food could be stored for safekeeping.