Food Scraps Backyard Composting Put in Organics (Green) Cart For Single-Family Residents: In January 2024 Single-Family Residential Curbside Food Scraps Recycling begins. Items including food scraps like fruit, vegetables, dairy, bread, meat/bones and food-soiled paper like pizza boxes and paper napkins, can all go into the green organics cart along with your green waste. (Clear and translucent plastic bags/liners and compostable plastic bags are allowed.) For Multi-Family Residents and Commerical Customers: Food Scraps Recycling for Multi-Family and Commercial Customers uses their BROWN bin/cart(s). Acceptable Items: Meat, fish, dairy, eggs & cheese Bones & shells Paper plates Food-soiled paper towels, napkins, paper bags, tissues, cardboard Not-Acceptable Items: Wood, yard waste Plastic Packaging Polystyrene foam Glass Black/colored can liner (Clear plastic liners are not preferred but are permitted for sanitary concerns.) Compost It Adding food waste to a backyard compost pile diverts organic waste from ending up in a landfill. Items that cannot be composted include: dairy products, meat, or fats and oils. Find out more about backyard composting. Never Pour Hot Oil Down Drain Don’t pour hot oil or fat down the drain or straight into the garbage. Learn how to dispose of cooking oil or grease. Ways to Reduce Avoid Food Waste Be strategic about how you store and eat your produce. Vegetarian Times provides a great explanation of why some veggies and fruit go bad before others, and offers a handy chart to help you plan your week. Create a Detailed Meal Plan One way to reduce food waste is to create a detailed meal plan for the week and build a shopping list around that meal plan. This better ensures everything will get consumed. Check out this meal planner from SaveTheFood.com. How You Store It The shelves, drawers and doors of your refrigerator are designed to hold different types of foods. When food is stored as intended, it will last longer and save you an extra trip to the store. Learn more about proper fridge organization. Ways to Reuse Donate to a Food Bank Consider donating unused food to families in need. Food banks generally accept these items: non-perishable proteins, kids’ snacks, traditional holiday food, condiments and spices, personal hygiene products, as well as baby food, formula and diapers. Did You Know? The Impact of Food Waste According to this PDF fact sheet by the NRDC, the United States invests much of its natural resources on growing food: 50 percent of land and 80 percent of fresh water in the United States is used for agriculture. Meanwhile, 40 percent of food in the United States is wasted, and 41 million Americans live in food-insecure households. I Value Food: A Campaign to End Food Waste The Perfect Compost Recipe Can I Make My Compost Pile Break Down Faster? Your compost pile breaks down faster if you mix together the right amounts of green and brown material. Your brown to green ratio is based off of your carbon to nitrogen ratio: 25-30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen is ideal. Keep in mind that food or yard waste all have different C:N ratios (shown here). Don’t get out your calculator for these ratios, instead just eyeball how much you put into the compost pile.
