Recology Sonoma Marin and Other North Bay Waste Haulers Weigh in on Proper Disposal Methods

Rob Carey was surprised after garbage pickup day to see the pink notice affixed to his green bin.

The note left for the Sebastopol resident was a soft reprimand from the city’s curbside hauler, Sonoma County Resource Recovery.

Carey, who regards himself a considerate customer, had been called out for using green compostable bags to discard his fruit and vegetable scraps.

“They said, ‘We don’t want that,'” he said, confounded. “And here I thought these bags were good.”

Carey considers himself a “recycler,” so he was surprised to learn he’d been going about his green waste disposal in the wrong way.

He is likely not alone.

While single-use bags labeled as compostable are an alternative to plastic bags, they are not to be disposed of in the green bins used to collect compostable waste, including food scraps and yard debris.

“People often put their food scraps in compostable bags because they don’t realize they don’t belong in organic carts,” said Alissa Johnson, administrative operations manager with Sonoma County Resource Recovery, which provides trash service to Sebastopol and Windsor.

For many curbside customers, it’s a message that doesn’t square with the labeling on those bags, which often indicates they are “biodegradable” or “compostable.”

But, like similarly labeled single-use utensils, straws, plates, bowls and cups, which are more Earth-friendly but still add to the waste we throw away in landfills, those bags cannot be composted in the backyard or commercial facilities, Johnson said.

So don’t place them in the green bin. They don’t belong in the recycling bin either, she added.

“These compostable plastics are different from regular plastic and have different melting points,” Johnson said. “They must be placed in the garbage.”

What can go in my compost cart?

Zero Waste Sonoma, the local government agency that partners with the county and local cities to help reduce waste, lists items that can and cannot be composted.

What can I compost?

• Eggshells

• Fruit and peelings

• Grass clippings, leaves and weeds

• Landscape prunings

• Meat, bones, dairy and seafood (packaging removed)

• Pasta, grains and bread

• Paper plates, bowls and napkins (no plastic or compostable plastic)

• Tea bags, coffee grounds and paper filters

• Tree trunks and tree branches (maximum 4 inches in diameter by 2 feet long)

• Vegetables and peelings

• Cold wood ashes

What must stay out of my compost bin?

• Animal/pet waste

• Bamboo

• Barbecue ashes

• Cactus

• Cooking oil and liquid waste

• Dirt, rocks or sod

• Glass

• Manure (from chickens, cows, horses, etc.)

• Palm fronds

• Pampas grass

• Plastics, including those labeled biodegradable or compostable

• Poison oak

• Sudden Oak Death-infested material

• Tree stumps

Current regional compost facilities aren’t able to process the materials in most compostable plastic bags, even if they’re certified as biodegradable, according to the website for Recology, the garbage hauler for the majority of Sonoma County.

Sonoma County has not had its own composting facility since 2015. Zero Waste Sonoma, the government agency that partners with the county and local cities to encourage residents reduce waste, partners with four Bay Area composting facilities, shipping the county’s compostable refuse to either the West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill, Redwood Landfill in Marin County, Cold Creek Compost in Ukiah or Napa Garbage and Recycling.

“Local compost facilities are not unique in their stance of not accepting ‘biodegradable’ or ‘compostable” items, said Celia Furber, community relations and sustainability manager with Recology Sonoma Marin. “Most commercial compost facilities across the state do not accept these materials.”

Johnson added that because of inconsistencies in product labeling, the composting facilities cannot easily distinguish compostable products from conventional, or petroleum-based plastic products.

So, to avoid creating microplastics that would end up in the finished compost — much of it sold to organic farmers — the compost facility operators screen out anything that resembles plastic and then send those materials to the landfill.

The same holds true for backyard compost piles, which are too small and fail to reach high enough temperatures to properly break down the materials.

Both Johnson and Furber suggest placing kitchen scraps in a paper bag or swapping out the compostable bag with paper towels or newspaper.

“Paper products are accepted in curbside composting bins,” Furber said.

Furber also suggested keeping food scraps in a sealed bag or container in the freezer, then dumping the scraps in the compost cart periodically.

Carey, frustrated by what he calls disingenuous marketing by the composting bag companies, wonders why they’re even sold at grocery stores at all. He went to his local grocery store and told the manager they shouldn’t be selling the bags.

“I don’t like things like that happening,” he said of the mixed messaging. “I wanted the real information to get out there.”

Furber says such bags have taken over a greater share of the market especially in California, after grocery stores were forced to eliminate plastic checkout bags and seek alternatives in their place.

“People are understandably confused that green plastic bags with these labels are not accepted,” she said.