Guide

What can I compost?

Good to compost: fruit and vegetable scraps, including peels, cores, and moldy produce. Coffee grounds and paper filters. Tea bags without staples or plastic mesh. Eggshells, crushed so they break down faster. Leaves, grass clippings, and yard trimmings. Shredded plain paper, newspaper, napkins, paper towels, and cardboard, including greasy pizza boxes torn into pieces. Banana peels, corn cobs, and avocado pits will break down too, just slowly.

For Kitchen2Compost pickups: food scraps only. Keep cardboard, plastic and trash out of the containers you post; collectors are picking up material for their bins, not sorting it.

Keep out: meat, fish, and bones. Dairy of any kind. Oils, grease, and heavily oily leftovers. Pet waste and cat litter. Plastic, glossy coated paper, and produce stickers. Bread, rice, pasta, and cooked leftovers sit in the middle: they can compost, but they attract pests fast, so bury them deep or leave them out until your pile is well established.

A note on bags labeled compostable or biodegradable: most need an industrial facility's heat and do not break down in a home pile. When in doubt, leave them out.

The keep-out list is not about the material being bad. It is about smell, pests, and food safety in a home-scale pile. Commercial composters can handle more.

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