Is lunch room/break room composting right for your office?
The City of Portland's Compost Team has outlined a few key points to determine whether composting is right for your office:
Do you have a Green Team?
An active Green Team in your office can more easily manage your composting (and recycling!) program.
Green teams:
Identify the employee(s) who will support, train and troubleshoot your compost collection
program.
Rally the troops! Well-trained and motivated employees make the difference. Staff meetings or memos will help to inform all office users. Posting our downloadable poster will help new users follow the guidelines.
Determine who will collect and take food waste from the lunchroom to the central waste
collection area, a vital component to the success of compost collection program. Although many buildings have a custodial or maintenance service or staff, we suggest using a Green Team
member to take out the food waste to keep an eye on what is going into the container.
If you don't have a Green Team, we suggest starting this as a first step. Visit www.portlandonline.com/osd/ and look for the link to the "Start a Green Team" fact sheet.
Who's in charge?
If your office is part of a larger, multi-tenant office building, you likely have a
property manager who handles the garbage and recycling for your building. The property manager works with the garbage, recycling and compost hauler to
arrange service.
The Portland Composts! program is voluntary, which means it may or may not be a service provided by your hauler. Additional fees may be charged for food waste hauling services and the property manager may or may not be interested in providing a third service, food-waste compost collection.
Where should food scrap collection containers be placed?
Many options exist, but space constraints and the schedule of when the food waste is collected from the building will determine optimal size and placement of internal collection containers, and if materials will need to be collected loosely or in a special compostable bag. A general rule of thumb is to place the food scrap collection container in high food waste areas such as lunchrooms or office kitchen areas. It should be clearly labeled and placed near a garbage can for convenience and to reduce the chance of
contamination.
What containers should we use?
Any rigid container will work, but it should be a distinctive color, ideally green. It should also be clearly
labeled for "Food and Food Soiled Paper Only". A 13-gallon office waste can is useful for most small areas. A metal "step-can" is also a popular option, allowing hands-free lidded operation.
To bag, or not to bag?
A bag or liner will help to keep your internal food waste containers clean. Because regular trash bags are made of plastic, you cannot include them in the compost program. Compostable bags are available in various sizes that are approved for our program; visit our Web site for information on ordering
compostable bags.
Another option is to use a regular plastic liner with a brown paper bag insert that is removed daily.
You can also use a regular trash bag and dump the loose contents into your service container.
How often should food waste be collected?
The idea of office space compost collection may meet with a bit of resistance from those who have never tried it. Frequent removal of the food waste is important to keep odors and fruit flies down and reluctant colleagues happy. An agreement to provide daily removal is usually warranted at start-up, but it is certainly possible to extend to servicing only two or three times a week.
City of Portland provides free resources to help your program succeed
Visit our Web site for more information and to access our online resources, including:
- Full color instructional posters
- Fact sheets and online information (biodegradable bags, fruit fly kits, etc.)
- Container stickers
Reward employees!
A little recognition for the great efforts employees are making can go a long way toward establishing a "recycling-positive" culture within your business.
Close the loop
Purchase bagged compost at Home Depot and Lowe's stores, sold under the Cedar Grove brand.
