South Lake Refuse & Recycling provides a green cart for the weekly roadside collection of compostable materials like yard waste, clean wood waste and vegetable garden & fruit tree waste.
Food waste/scrap compost collection coming soon. As of January 1, 2022, a new California law (SB 1383) requires the sorting of recyclables and organic waste including paper, cardboard, yard waste, food scraps, and food soiled paper from the garbage. However, Lake County is a rural community and has been given two more years to fully implement a food waste compost program.
Compost (Green) carts are only available in the 96-gallon size.
Visit our Residential Services page to review the cart options and set out rules for residential customers.
When organic materials end up in landfills, they generate methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. South Lake’s compost facility, Quackenbush, instead turns this valuable material into organic compost. When compost is used in landscape and agriculture it builds soil nutrients, conserves water, and reduces the need for fertilizers.
Please do not include any plastics in the compost carts besides the BPI certified bags for kitchen waste.
These materials can be placed in the yard waste/food scraps cart.
These materials should not be placed in the yard waste/food scraps cart.
You may use unlined brown paper bags to collect food scraps, but if you choose to line your kitchen pail with compostable bags, they must meet Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) standards and show the BPI symbol.
Bags can be purchased at:
If flies cannot get to your food scraps, they will leave them alone. To keep fruit flies and other bugs out of your kitchen pail and green cart always keep the lids closed tight. As an extra precaution, cover your food scraps with paper towels or newspaper and tuck the edges along the inner wall of the pail.
The smell of meat and dairy products is often what lures critters like rats, mice or raccoons to your garbage and food scraps. If possible, cover your food scraps with yard waste to help minimize odors. Make sure the green cart lid is closed tight. Remember, your pick-up services require that the lids of carts open easily so please do not use weights, bungee cords, or rope to keep lids closed. These devices might also inadvertently end up in the trucks with the food scraps and yard waste
Garbage disposals aren’t meant to handle large quantities of food. Sending food into the sewer requires additional water to flush the food down your drain. Conserve water by collecting your food scraps for composting. By doing this, not only do we protect the environment, but we also capture personal cost savings from less water use and community savings from less wastewater treatment costs.
Soiled paper, bones, seafood shells, and fruit pits, as well as fats, solidified oils, and grease (FOG) should never be put down the drain, but can definitely be composted. FOG can cause sewer blockages leading to spills and overflows, which are harmful to the environment and public health.
We know that it can be difficult to determine what materials are compostable. All materials in the green carts or compost bins go to the Upper Valley Composting Facility where they are made into a nutrient rich soil amendment, compost. Contamination is very hard to remove once it is in the compost container.
We make every effort to emptying your container(s) on your service day, but on occasion, we may miss you. We apologize if this happens.
Quakenbush Resource Recovery Park offers compost made from the organic material we collect.
Dispose of materials like batteries, paints and household cleaners properly at a collection event for residents in Lake County.
© 2023 South Lake Refuse & Recycling
