CVSan: Celebrate 20 Years of Food Scrap Recycling

Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan) was the first in Alameda County and one of the early pioneers nationwide by piloting municipal curbside food scrap recycling in 2001 and rolling out a residential program in 2002. Since then, food scrap recycling in green organics carts has expanded to schools and businesses. CVSan’s community has actively participated in food scrap recycling, and significantly reduced waste sent to the landfill, from 32,320.71 total tons in 2005 to 14,920.36 tons in 2021. This year, CVSan is celebrating its milestone of “Composting Food Scraps in CVSan since 2002”, or 20 years of food scrap recycling!

Compost is currently made at the Napa Recycling and Composting Facility from the food scraps, food-soiled paper, and plant debris collected by Alameda County Industries for CVSan, and provides many benefits to the community. Every spring and summer, CVSan gives back thousands of bags of compost to the community at its Recycles Day events and bulk compost to schools and parks through its Earth Day events. To learn about the numerous benefits of compost, visit cvsan.org/compost.

CVSan composted 10,521 tons or 21,042,000 pounds of organics in 2021! CVSan donates green organics bins each year to the CVSan community for use at home, work, and school to collect food scraps for composting. Residents can request an indoor food scrap recycling pail at cvsan.org/DSRF. Residents can also request up to two “We Compost Food Scraps” decals to place on their green organics carts to celebrate “Composting Food Scraps in CVSan since 2002” at cvsan.org/20thOfFSR.