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Sonoma County Waste Management Agency

What Would You Like to Recycle?


Curbside yard debris & veggies recycling

Resources for the yard debris cart

Poster for curbside yard debris & veggies recycling (PDF: 7.19 MB)
Póster con información de reciclaje de vegetales y desechos del jardín (PDF: 5.41 MB)

Put your veggies in the yard debris cart flier (PDF: 5.27 MB)
Ponga sus vegetales dentro del contenedor de basura del jardín (PDF: 3.5 MB)

The process of veggie scrap recycling

Collecting vegetable scraps

Collect veggie scraps when you cook. To keep your cart clean, use a brown paper bag, newspaper or kitchen pail to collect your fruit and veggie food scraps.

Place vegetable scraps in yard wast cart

Place veggie scraps in the curbside yard waste cart. Contents of yard waste containers are collected every week.

Composting process

Compost is made from veggie scraps & yard debris. Sonoma Compost Company operates the municipal composting program.

Compost is used in gardens

Farmers & gardeners use the compost. The compost product is great to use on gardens.

Green yard wast cartVeggies in your yard debris cart
Residents may now place all vegetative food waste in their yard debris cart. 

Why recycle veggie scraps?
Veggie scraps are  the largest unrecycled portion of the residential waste stream.

In fact, about 35% of residential garbage is food waste, totaling nearly 800 tons a week in Sonoma County — a resource that could be used instead of landfilled.

Materials accepted in yard debric cartAccepted in the yard debris cart:

  • Fruit & peelings
  • Vegetables & peelings
  • Pasta & rice
  • Bread
  • Tea bags
  • Coffee grounds & filters
  • Eggshells
  • Wood ashes (cold)
  • Landscape prunings (maximum 4 feet long)
  • Grass clippings, leaves & weeds
  • Tree trunks and branches (maximum 4 inches in diameter by 4 feet long)

Not accepted in the yard debris cart:

  • Meat
  • Cooking oil & liquid waste
  • Bones
  • Dairy & cheese
  • Plastic bags, including compostable plastic bags
  • Poison oak
  • Cactus
  • Palm fronds
  • Pampas grass
  • Bamboo
  • Sudden Oak Death infested material
  • Dirt or rocks
  • Sod
  • Animal waste
  • Tree stumps
  • Other refuse

Sebastopol residents only: All food waste accepted in the yard debris cart
Sebastopol residents can put all kinds of food in their yard debris cart, not just vegetative food waste. Accepted in Sebastopol only. 

  • Meat, fish & bones
  • Cheese
  • Bones
  • Food leftovers (packaging removed)


Compostable plastics are not a good choice. Common examples are garbage bags, clear cups, utensils and compostable plastic garden pots.  

Problems with compostable plastics are:

  • They degrade too slowly for the municipal composting program.
  • They are not allowed in certified organic agriculture products. Compost made from curbside yard debris and food waste is listed with OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute.
  • Compostable bags contaminate in-store grocery store plastic bag recycling programs as they can’t be mixed with polyethylene plastic film (HDPE #2 and LDPE #4).

For more information, download a compostable plastics article (PDF: 2.28 MB) written by Will Bakx, Soils Scientist for Sonoma Compost Company or call (707) 578-5459.

How is the material processed?
Material is processed through the municipal composting program.

Rather make your own compost at home?
Visit home composting to learn about composting classes, worm composting and bin purchase options.

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Sonoma County Waste Management Agency ● 2300 County Center Drive, Suite B-100 ● Santa Rosa, CA 95403