The City is excited to announce that on March 1st, EDCO will launch its residential organics recycling program in Solana Beach. You no longer have to throw food, bones, or dirty pizza boxes into the trash. Throw them into your green bin instead. You should have received the informational brochure in your mail from EDCO that explains the program in detail, but just in case you haven’t, it is attached here for reference.

Organic waste accounts for over 40% of the material in California’s waste stream. Organic material cannot break down when buried in a landfill, as it would in nature or a compost pile. Instead, it decomposes without oxygen releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. But, with EDCO’s new program, organic material (food scraps and yard waste) can now be recycled when placed in green carts and then transported to EDCO’s new state-of-the-art Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Facility, where it will break down and convert into renewable natural gas used to power EDCO trash and recycling trucks and into fertilizer. This is an exciting new environmentally sustainable program that will help the City meet and exceed its Climate Action Plan goals.

The attached flyer has all the details about what can go into the green bin, but the basic idea is—If it grows, it goes. So, any organic material may be comingled into your green bin. This includes organic material from your yard, such as grass, sticks, leaves, or any organic material from your kitchen such as eggshells, bones, vegetable scraps, and even soiled paper plates. To get the food scraps from your kitchen to your green cart, EDCO offers a range of solutions. You may order one of their kitchen caddies at no charge to be delivered to you by navigating to this page: Organic Recycling Page and clicking the “Request Kitchen Caddie” button at the bottom of the page. You may also roll your scraps into brown paper bags or use other commercially available compost-type containers. It’s up to you. Please do NOT use any plastic bags even if they are labeled as “compostable.”

And remember, if you think you might need more space in your green waste bins, you can order additional cans from EDCO free of charge.