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Compost
What happens with the materials we put in the green organics cart?
Alameda County Industries (ACI) collects organics cart materials and sends it to the Napa Recycling and Waste Services (NRWS) facility where Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan)’s’s food scraps, plant debris, and food soiled paper get turned into compost! Watch how the materials get processed. Thank you to NRWS for sharing this video.
What is compost?
Compost is a natural soil amendment which is created from the materials CVSan customers put in their organics carts. Every spring and summer, CVSan gives back thousands of bags of compost to the community at the Recycles Day event.
Gardeners and farmers add compost to soil to improve its physical properties. They may even use compost instead of soil to grow plants.
Mature compost is a stable material with a content called humus that is dark brown or black (sometimes called “black gold”) and has a soil-like, earthy smell. Compost is created by:
- Combining organic materials, such as food scraps, plant debris, and food-soiled paper, in the right ratios into piles, rows, or vessels.
- Adding bulking agents such as wood chips, as necessary to accelerate the breakdown of organic materials; and
- Allowing the finished material to fully stabilize and mature through a curing process.
Mature compost is created using high temperatures to destroy pathogens and weed seeds that natural decomposition does not destroy.
Why has CVSan been composting food scraps in the green cart for over 20 years now?
There are many benefits from placing food scraps in CVSan’s green organics carts and bins for composting.
The impacts from composting:
- Saves you money since you will pay less for your garbage, recycling, and organics if you have less in the garbage and more in the recycling and organics. Pulling those food scraps and food-soiled paper out of the garbage is a big step. Compare the rates you would pay for reduced garbage.
- Creates jobs and using compost in infrastructure creates even more jobs.
- Prevents soil erosion in a number of ways, including by binding soil together, increasing infiltration, and slowing the surface flow of water. It can also help rebuild and restore turf grasses.
- Helps in stormwater management by controlling water flows on and through soil and retaining and filtering pollutants.
- Promotes healthier plant growth and suppresses plant disease. Compost can also increase crop yields, improve soil structure and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.
- Conserves water due to its ability to retain and efficiently transfer water.
- Improves soil health by improving the biological, chemical, and structural health of soil. This further contributes to healthy plants and successful projects.
- Reduces project maintenance costs with compost since it promotes healthy plant growth, thereby reducing mortality and subsequent replacement costs. In addition, compost promotes drought resistance which lowers artificial irrigation costs.
- Is mandatory and the law as of January 1, 2022. With California law SB 1383 participating in food scrap recycling is mandatory for residents and businesses now.
How is compost made?
Check out how our compost is made! Local composter Napa Waste and Recycling Services is processing everything we put in the green carts and bins in CVSan and they’ve created this neat composting video. And local hauler Alameda County Industries (ACI) of San Leandro, who picks up your organics from the curb in CVSan, created a “What Happens to Your Organics?” video that you should watch too.
How much does CVSan compost in the green cart?
CVSan composted 10,521 tons or 21,042,000 pounds of organics including plant debris, food scraps, and food-soiled paper from green carts and bins in 2021! The EPA estimates that 2.6 million tons of food scraps were composted in the U.S. in 2018
Do you have any tips for collecting food scraps?
While there is one way of getting your food scraps and food-soiled paper collected from the curb (by ACI in your green cart, bin, or box) there are many ways and many styles of collecting those materials at your home, business, or school. Find tips and tricks to make it easy from our food scrap recycling web page.
Can you compost food scraps at home too?
Sure! As long as those materials are being composted, we still all benefit from it. Find out more about composting at home or community composting.
Davis Street WM EarthCare Landscape Center
The Davis Street WM EarthCare Landscape Center, located in San Leandro provides sustainable landscape products like compost and mulch made locally from 100 percent recycled, Bay Area-sourced organic materials.