City of Santa Barbara Businesses: Foodscrap Composting

The City of Santa Barbara is now offering foodscraps collection service to compliment greenwaste, recycling, and trash collection services already available for businesses. It's simple: put the foodscraps in the yellow bin, and they will be hauled away and composted. The compost will be used by local farmers to grow more food. If you want to see how the composting program works, view a presentation. You need PowerPoint to see it, and if you do not have it, download the viewer.

Did you know that 3,000 businesses already participate in foodscrap collection programs in over a dozen cities across California?

Compost is a nutrient-rich soil amendment that is produced when very small organisms break down plant and animal materials in the prescence of oxygen. Many residents compost their leaves and foodscraps at home in their backyards. Foodscraps collected in the city program are trucked to a composting site, placed in long rows called “windrows”, and turned regulary by large machines to introduce oxygen into the pile. Learn more about he composting process by reading the Composting Booklet.

There are many benefits to applying compost to soils in Santa Barbara for agriculture and landscaping including:

Lower Costs
About 25,000 tons of foodscraps are put into our local landfill every year! Burying trash in landfills is expensive and space is limited, with dumping costs increasing each year as a result. Composting foodscraps is less expensive than landfilling, and businesses pay less for this service than trash. Foodscrap collection is easy to implement in a clean and effective manner with little to no increase in staff time. All businesses that produce large quantities of foodscraps will see a reduction in their trash bill when they implement foodscraps collection.

Safer Community

Foodscraps are collected from restaurants inside the City and turned into compost by professional composters at Engle and Gray, Inc in Santa Maria. Compost makes our parks, schoolyards, and agricultural fields healthier and more productive. Compost does this without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides that can sicken people or wildlife and wash into our watershed. Food and agricultural products grown with compost share these same benefits and help feed our community and economy. Santa Barbara County produced over $1.1 billion dollars in agricultural goods in 2007. Foodscraps compost from our businesses turns a waste into a community resource.

Healthier Planet
Landfills are the largest source of manmade methane in the United States. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 72 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide for warming our planet. Foodscraps break down quickly in landfills and produce large amounts of methane and other polluting gases. Composting these same foodscraps produces no methane gas because the process incorporates oxygen with regular turning of the compost. When businesses choose to participate in foodscraps collection, they turn a liability for the planet into a local asset. Learn more about Landfill Gas Production.

Foodscraps collection is easy! Anything that is an organic material (it has come from a once-living organism and is capable of decay), can be composted. This includes plants, paper (without plastic coatings), fruit, eggshells, meat, bones, waxed cardboard and compostable tableware. Please see the Getting Started: Foodscraps Composting in 5 Easy Steps Brochure for list of acceptable materials.

Oil and grease should not be poured down the drain because they clog up the sewer lines. They should also not be put into the trash containers because they make a mess, attract rodents, and cause the container to smell. There are many companies that will collected separated grease at no charge.

Foodscraps are not a new and scary health issue. They are already in your trash and they are subject to the same health regulations as trash. Participants in the Foodscrap Collection Program use standardized yellow carts provided by Allied Waste/BFI and MarBorg for collection – just like regular trash service. By promptly removing trash, foodscraps, and recycling outside food preparation areas each day, your business will be able to comply with the County Health Code. Furthermore, foodscraps are collected twice a week, which is twice as often as the required standard for trash collection that some businesses currently utilize. This will further reduce risks associated with trash collection from “vectors,” such as rats. Read excerpts from the California Restaurant Code that apply to foodscraps handling and storage. The Foodscraps Program is approved and encouraged by Environmental Health Services (EHS). EHS only requires that you fill out the required form to participate.

An excellent example of this program’s effectiveness can be witnessed at Cottage Hospital. Cottage has participated in the City’s pilot Foodscrap Collection and Recovery Program for almost two years with no collection issues. Health regulations for hospitals are among the most stringent of any industry.

Ask the Experts
If you have a food serving business, call the Commercial Composting Specialists for help in setting up the

program. They have experience with the pilot program participants and can help you set up the program for sucess. If your business does not serve food, but still has lunchroom scraps or other organic material that you want to have composted, call your hauler to get a 32 or 64 gallon foodscraps cart. If you set up your own program, please ensure that your yellow bin has only organic matter inside. Trash in the composting bins jeopardizes our program.

Setting up Collection Containers in the Kitchen
Containers lined with compostable bags should placed around prep stations in the kitchen. Regular plastic bags are not allowed in the program. Make it easy for the chefs/cooks to toss only foodscraps or organic materials into the containers. Place yellow containers near the sink/dishwashing station so plates can be scraped into it and then washed. The containers inside the restaurant should be labeled for Foodscraps only, since contamination from non-organic materials can ruin the composting process. Your waste hauler and the Commercial Composting Specialists will provide stickers and yellow indoor containers to help identify foodscraps collection points.

Buying Compostable Bags and Service-Ware

Many vendors currently stock a wide range of “compostable” serviceware including plates, to-go containers, napkins, and cutlery. There are also several manufacturers of biodegradable plastic bags. Download a list of compostable serviceware and bags that are compatible with Santa Barbara's composting program. All bags must be certified by PBI and/or ASTM 6400. Vendors that wish to have their materials approved for use in this program should apply online. If you want more information on the sustainability impacts of compostable utensils, see Greentips, a publication of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Cleaning the Foodscraps Container
You can call your hauler to have your cart or dumpster cleaned twice per year or you can clean it more frequently yourself. Here are some ideas for keeping your cart cleaner, longer:

Staff Training
Business managers have many resources available to help staff understand the differences between foodscraps, recycling, greenwaste, and trash. The City Commercial Composting Specialists will conduct onsite trainings for food serving businesses. They will also provide Foodscraps Composting Brochures, posters, and stickers for the bins.

Foodscraps Program Guide
In order to help your business implement a successful Foodscraps Program, we have compiled a basic guide to inform you of the best practices and regulations involved in the program. The Foodscraps Program Guide contains the following information:

As always, we are ready to help you be successful and save money with the Foodscraps Program. Please call a Commercial Composting Specialist with any questions.

Sign Up for the Foodscraps Program

Step 1: Register with our online form. Once you have registered, a Commercial Composting Specialist will contact you to schedule and initial onsite assessment and analysis.

Step 2: Fill out the form required by The County Environmental Health Services and mail it to them.

How Does it Work?
Both Allied Waste and MarBorg Industries will provide foodscrap collection to all business accounts along with Recycling, Greenwaste, and Trash service.The City is divided into two zones serviced by Allied/BFI and MarBorg. Businesses South or West of State Street are serviced by Allied/BFI. MarBorg Services businesses north and east of State. See the Trash and Recycling Service Providers Map to determine your hauler. Call your hauler to initiate or change foodscraps services. This should be your last step in the process. Make sure that you perform all of the steps in the previous section, Starting Your Foodscraps Collection Program first. Foodscraps containers are provided by the waste hauler. Since foodscraps are heavy, service is only available in smaller containers. All foodscraps containers will be collected at least twice per week.

Cart Service

The waste hauler will provide either 32 or 64-gallon yellow carts designated for Foodscraps Collection. Carts are mobile, vermin proof, and meet health regulations so that the empty containers can be brought inside during business hours, and full ones set outside for collection.

Dumpster Service
Santa Barbara Food Composting Dumpster

1.5 cubic yard and 2 cubic yard yellow dumpsters are available. Bagged foodscraps from smaller indoor containers can be placed in the dumpster. Businesses with a foodscrap dumpster can obtain the mobile yellow carts for indoor collection from the Commercial Composting Specialists and empty them into the dumpster.

What Capacity Do I Need?
Full service restaurants have the least amount of packaging in their waste and will be able to divert up to 70% of their waste into foodscraps bins. The remaining waste can typcially be split evenly between trash and recycling at 15% each, although some businesses will be able to recycle more. Coffee shops have a lot more packaging in their waste, and initial results suggest that only 15% is foodscraps, 50% is trash, and 35% is recycling. These are merely guidelines and will vary among businesses.

Businesses with Trash in Carts or Cans. Foodscrap collection will be in carts.

Businesses with Trash in Dumpsters. If your business currently has no recycling and you get both recycling and foodscraps collection, you may end up with carts for some or all of the materials. If the restaurant produces a lot of waste, all three materials might be in dumpsters. The Commercial Composting Specialists can help you determine the right container mix.

Where Should I Place the Foodscrap Containers?

Foodscraps carts are rolled out to a designated collection location where they are serviced by the waste haulers. Most likely this will be the trash enclosure or next to it. Foodscraps dumpsters should be located in or adjacent to the trash enclosure. If there is no room for a foodscraps dumpster in the current location and you need to put it elsewhere, your hauler can help you choose a location that is accessible to the collection vehicles. Containers may not be placed in public parking lots.

If you do not have space for additional containers, share existing ones with a neighbor. If two businesses each have room for only one trash dumpster, they can share one of the trash dumpsters, replace the other with a foodscraps dumpster, and share that one too. Each business will be billed directly for their share of each of the containers. Sharing is possible in all container types. The City Commerical Composting Specialist has arranged many bin sharing agreements (4 or 5 businesses sharing one set of containers), and can help you with all aspects from economic analysis to user agreements.

How Much Does it Cost?
Foodscraps, greenwaste, and recycling collection all cost 15% of the price of trash. Since you will move the food portion of your trash from the trash container to the foodscraps container, you will also reduce either the size or frequency of your trash container. The reduction of trash service is how you will save money by recycling or composting. Call the Commercial Composting Specialists for an economic analysis.

Contamination Policy
When the foodscraps containers are picked up by the haulers, they must contain 100% organic material only. Contamination jeopardizes the composting program. If bins contain material that is unacceptable, they will not be emptied into the compost truck, and the trash truck will come by to service them. Customers will be assessed a special fee that is greater than the cost of trash for containers that cannot be collected by the compost truck. A Commercial Composting Specialist will contact customers with repeatedly contaminated containers to train staff and provide resources to ensure that only organics are in the yellow bin.