Eugene’s first curbside residential composting pilot will begin this week in a section of Friendly neighborhood. The pilot area includes about 400 residents who live in the area of 24th Place to the north, 29th Avenue to the South, Charnelton Street to the west, and Amazon Parkway to the east. Residents will receive kitchen collection pails to conveniently collect their food scraps this Thursday, September 22nd. These food scraps can go into their yard debris bin instead of the garbage can for collection. Once collected, the material will be turned into nutrient rich Love Food Not Waste® compost. The compost will be available at local home and garden stores for use in home gardens.
Each year, Eugene tosses 40 million pounds of food into the local landfill. Half of this food waste comes from homes. To reduce the amount of food waste going to the landfill, the City of Eugene is launching the two-year residential curbside food waste collection pilot program. The program will make it easier for residents in single-family homes to recycle their food waste through home yard debris service already provided by garbage haulers. Usable food waste needs to be free of non-compostable material like plastic, metal, and other non-food or non-plant materials. To keep the food waste and yard debris “clean,” participants are asked to include only food waste and yard debris in the bin.
Throughout the course of the pilot, residents will have a chance to give input and discuss what is going well and what could be improved. This valuable input will help the City of Eugene create a food waste collection program that works for everyone.
This pilot program builds off of the success of Eugene’s commercial composting program, Love Food Not Waste®. Over 200 local businesses and schools, have already been reducing waste by sending food scraps to be composted. To date, over 7,000 tons of food waste has been converted to compost and biogas.