Novato Disposal and Novato Sanitary District are Introducing a New Pilot Program: Food Scrap Composting!

What is one of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of waste you send to the landfill each month?

Compost your food scraps!

It’s convenient, we’ll pick it up, and it’s included with your garbage service. You are one of a select group of Novato residents that can now put ALL food scraps in their yard debris cart. About 35% 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.

When we say "All" food scraps we mean it.

This includes: meat/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.

In order for this pilot program, which is exclusive to a select group of Novato residents, 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 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.

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
Novato Sanitary District: 892-1694