Fight Climate Change – Compost Your Kitchen Scraps!
Organic material that is landfilled converts to methane. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. It is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In California, food scraps account for 18 percent of all the material that goes to landfills. This means on average, every year each person in Sonoma sends about 300 pounds of food scraps to the landfill.
The good news is that methane from landfills is the easiest greenhouse gas to prevent. By placing all organic materials, which includes your food scraps, into the green organics cart, you can prevent the generation of methane. In addition to food scraps, because paper towels, napkins, and tissue cannot be recycled, but can be composted, they also should go into your green organics cart.
If you have felt a little powerless to help fight climate change, collecting and separating your food scraps is the easiest and no-cost action to make a difference. To make it even easier, the City of Sonoma is giving away free countertop kitchen pails to collect your scraps. So what are you waiting for? Compost It Sonoma!
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3….
- Get your free countertop kitchen pail by emailing CounterTopPails@gmail.com for free delivery (city of Sonoma residents only) OR pick one up at one of these locations, limit one per household, while supplies last:
- Refill Madness Sonoma, 500 W Napa St #540
- Sonoma City Hall, No. 1 The Plaza
- Sonoma Garden Park, 19996 7th St E on Fridays & Saturdays from 9:00 – 11:00 am
- Collect your food scraps in the kitchen pail.
- You can line your pail with newspaper, paper bag, or paper egg cartons. Residents of Sonoma can use certified, green compostable plastic bags.
- Transfer the food scraps to the green organics cart and place it at the curb on garbage day.
- Sonoma Garbage Collectors will collect and haul your food scraps and green organic waste to a composting facility to recycle these materials into valuable compost.
Sort it Sonoma! Is a partnership between the City of Sonoma, Sonoma Garbage Collectors and Zero Waste Sonoma. For more information about proper waste sorting, please visit our Sort It Sonoma! webpage.
Photo: Sonoma Mayor Jack Ding picks up a free kitchen compost pail and biodegradable pail liners from Jana Wang at her store, Refill Madness in the Sonoma Valley Shopping Center.