Tunbridge — The Tunbridge World’s Fair, which runs from Sept. 14 to 17, will have an increased focus on recycling and composting this year, as part of a continuing effort across Vermont to decrease waste.

The fair received a grant from the national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful​ to put an additional 20 blue recycling bins around the fairgrounds.

In addition, the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District, a government agency helping communities manage and reduce their waste, will be working with select vendors to compost food waste at the fair. “It makes so much sense at an agricultural fair to recycle the food scraps,” Cassandra Hemenway, outreach manager for the waste management district, said in a telephone interview.

Vermont, which already has mandatory recycling, will ban all food scraps from landfills by 2020, so it is important that major events begin composting.

However, Hemenway said, the process needs to happen through baby steps, starting with educating the public and vendors about proper recycling and composting. This year, the focus will be on vendors with a lot of food waste, such as lemonade stands. Fairgoers also will have the chance to compost their waste by going to the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District’s booth.

In the future, Hemenway said, all vendors and fairgoers will be required to compost and recycle.

“That part of the law isn’t necessarily a mandate this year, but it will be in a couple of years,” she said. The fair is “getting ahead of the game and figuring out how to do it now with our support.”

Hemenway said the fair generates about 50,000 pounds of waste. If all recycling and compost were take out of that, Hemenway said, the amount of waste would be cut in half.