Although Maine found itself ringed tightly in winter's grip Tuesday, Maine Department of Environmental Protection's Mark King said it's not too early to think about spring.

More specifically, it's not too early to start thinking about compost.

King spoke Tuesday during the Lincoln County Commissioners meeting about the possibility of expanding the Lincoln County composting pilot project to more people throughout the county and possibly to businesses in the area.

“We started a little late in the season last year when people already had projects going on,” King said. “This time, we want to make a big push in April or May when people are getting out.”

Despite its relatively late push the pilot program picked up more than 1,700 pounds of organic food waste in 2013 from the buckets (another 200 pounds came following Damariscotta's Pumpkinfest and Regatta).

But, the collection of organic materials is just one part, King said; in fact, if he had his way there would be a lot less to collect.

“One of the things we do is, go in and find where businesses are creating this waste,” he said. “We want to help them along the way to see where the waste is coming from and where it can be reduced.

“The idea is to not create waste to begin with.”

In order to do that he has to provide support and education and make sure that the whole organization is united when it moves forward, King said.

“We try to come up with more ways to be efficient and the first way (in Lincoln County) is with the buckets,” he said.

Should the project expand to businesses, it could have several pitfalls, King said. One pitfall would be the amount of food waste building up in restaurants and another would be acquiring all that nutrient-rich waste.

“Storage has always been our Achilles’ heel,” he said. “Most restaurants and businesses usually have a small area where they keep (organic food scraps), but no one really wants to look at it and there's a health issue involved with having decomposing food near fresh food. So you need to have a good place for storage.”

In addition to adequate storage, transportation needs serious thought if it is going to be incorporated and cost-effective, King said.

“In Boothbay, we had a retired gentleman drive around and pick up the organic materials,” he said. “You would need to have some sort of transportation figured out, and transportation costs are costs that can go up exponentially.”

On the other end, truckloads of fresh organic compost could produce up to $25 per truckload for the county, which could defer some of the costs.

But, the main concern is the environment and the community, King said.

“We're trying to make the community stronger, get some buzz going and help some businesses,” he said. “You never know where something like this can go. Success breeds success, and sometime even failure can bring success. Success or fail, I'm going to give it my best effort.”

Related: Hold on to your buckets