Food waste isn’t just bad for the environment, it’s bad for business.
Just one restaurant sends on average about 50,000 pounds of food to landfills each year. Once at a landfill, food waste generates methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. But food waste isn’t just bad for the environment, it’s bad for business.
More organizations are joining the Ecotone Renewables community creating a greater opportunity for composting to local citizens.
If you have access to a ZEUS digester review our composting guidelines.
What can be composted
Food scraps
Cooked food
Fruit and vegetable scraps
Egg shells
Coffee grounds
Coffee filters
Tea bags
Loose leaf tea
Spoiled soy/rice/almond/oat/coconut milk
Used paper napkins and paper towels
Unwaxed cardboard pizza boxes (small pieces)
Paper bags (shredded)
The crumbs you sweep off of the counters and floors
Cooked pasta
Cooked rice
Stale bread, pitas, or tortillas
Stale tortilla chips or potato chips
Spoiled pasta sauce or tomato paste
Crumbs from the bottom of snack food packaging
Paper towel rolls (shredded)
Stale crackers
Stale cereal
Cardboard boxes from cereal, pasta, etc. (Remove any plastic windows and shred)
Used paper plates (as long as they don’t have a waxy coating)
Nut shells (except for walnut shells, which are toxic to plants)
Spoiled tofu and tempeh
Seaweed, kelp or nori
Unpopped, burnt popcorn kernels
Old herbs and spices
Stale pretzels
Stale candy (crushed or chopped)
Stale protein or “energy” bars
Pizza crusts
Old oatmeal
Peanut shells
Cardboard egg cartons (cut them up)
Stale pumpkin, sunflower or sesame seeds (chopped up so they can’t sprout)
Avocado pits (chopped up so they don’t sprout)
Wine corks (chop up so they decompose faster)
Moldy cheese (in moderation)
Melted ice cream (in moderation)
Old jelly, jam, or preserves
Stale beer and wine
Toothpicks
Bamboo skewers (in pieces)
Paper cupcake or muffin cups
What can't be accepted into the digester
Glass
Paper
Plastics
Metals of any kind