Pilot city composting program kicks off
Houston kicked off its newest composting drop-off program Monday, an effort city leaders would like to see contribute to a reduction in food waste in municipal landfills.
Staff from Zero Waste Houston will accept food scraps and other compostable waste at community centers in Kashmere Gardens, Acres Homes, Alief and Sunnyside during the six-week pilot program.
Residents can drive up and pass their containers through a car window, in a system that closely mirrors the city’s similar pilot program from 2021.
Council Member Sallie Alcorn said she has been looking to re-up the city’s efforts ever since the previous pilot.
That event collected 14,551 pounds of compost material, according to data from the city’s Solid Waste Management Department.
Meanwhile, food waste has remained a significant issue for Houston and a priority in the city’s Climate Action Plan.
“Twenty-four percent of municipal landfills are food waste, and when food waste gets trapped down there, the bacteria creates methane gases and it’s a huge greenhouse gas problem,” Alcorn said at a City Council meeting in November.
When to drop off
The program has a six-week schedule with different dates and times for each location. Residents can drop off their food waste at:
• Kashmere Multi-Service Center, from 2 to 5 p.m. Mondays.
• Acres Homes Multi-Service Center, from 2 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays.
• Alief Neighborhood Center, from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays.
• Sunnyside Multi-Service Center, from 3 to 6 p.m. Thursdays.
What to compost
Houston residents can drop off fried food, meat bones, fruit peels, seafood shells and other assorted organics, including inedible materials such as fur, hair, paper napkins, newspaper, wood ash and compostable plates.
Don’t confuse composting with recycling, though: plastic, glass, metal or treated wood will not be accepted.
The full list of acceptable items is on the city’s website.
Where the scraps go
The area’s largest facility accepting municipal food waste is Nature’s Way in Conroe, which looks like a set of mini mountain ranges.
The loose, man-made earthy ridges that crowd its outdoor lot are piles of waste at different stages in the decomposition process.
Within these piles, composted food waste is mixed with yard trimmings and other organics.
Each pile is carefully managed until it can break down into usable, highly fertile soil, the group says.
Farmers and home gardeners can then use the soil to plant.
That process recycles the nutrients that would otherwise have rotted away in a landfill.
Nature’s Way receives truckloads of compostable materials from pickup services like Zero Waste Houston and Moonshot Compost to create its towering mounds, but smaller-scale operations work just as well.
Some Houstonians have even installed compost setups in their backyards.