What is one of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of waste you send to the landfill each month? Compost Your Food Scraps!
Curbside Collection of Food Scraps in Yard Waste Bins to Begin
Beginning around the end of January 2011, Novato Disposal will begin collecting food scraps in yard debris cards from all residential customers in Novato.
Benefits of Composting Food Scaps
About 30% of residential garbage is food waste. By sending your food scraps to be composted instead of landfilled you are preserving landfill space and allowing the resource to be used as soil-enriching compost rather than buried forever in a landfill. Composting food scraps also significantly reduces methane gas, a major greenhouse gas.
Food Scraps Will be Collected From All Residential Customers
Food scraps will be collected from all single family residential customers. School collection of food scraps has been underway for about a year. Collecting food waste from multifamily complexes, restaurants and businesses is a goal down the line.
When we say "All" Food Scraps We Mean It
This includes: meat and fish bones, cheese, food leftovers (be sure to remove all packaging), fruits, vegetables, & their peelings, pasta, rice, bread, coffee grounds (filters too!), tea bags, soiled paper towels and egg shells. This in addition to the usual items accepted such as: weeds, leaves, landscape prunings, grass clippings, tree branches less than 4" in diameter by 2' long.
What We Can’t Collect
In order for this pilot program to be successful, we need to work together to keep contaminants out of your yard debris cart. That means NO: glass, plastic bags (even so-called "compostable" plastics), poison oak, cactus, palm fronds, pampas grass, bamboo, Sudden Oak Death infested material, sod, dirt, rocks, animal waste, tree stumps, or any other refuse.
How it Works
Instead of scraping plates into the garbage or into the disposal, scrape them into a paper bag or wrap in newspaper. Simply put the whole thing in the yard debris cart. Some people find that freezing items such as fish scraps and putting them in the cart the night before their service day helps keep the odors at bay. Or, place a bucket or bowl on the counter while preparing a meal and dump materials loose in your green cart.
Compost Available at Redwood Landfill and Recycling Center
The food waste will be taken by Novato Disposal to the Redwood Landfill and Recycling Center, just north of Novato. The compost can be purchased for $26 per cubic yard or $5.50 for a 2 cubic foot bag. The cost of the collection and composting is about 1% more than simply landfilling it even after accounting for the income from the compost.
Let’s Make it Happen, Novato!
By composting food scraps, together we can keep tons of material out of the landfill and give our local compost facility more material to make valuable soil. Everyone wins!
Questions?
Novato Disposal: 897-4177 or Novato Disposal
Novato Sanitary District: 892-1694