Businesses: Organics (Green) Bin

You can put both food scraps and landscape trimmings in your green bin. If it was once alive, it can go in the bin—and that includes food-soiled paper! Paper was once a tree, and the food will contaminate paper recycling if you put it in the blue bin.

(However, if you are a restaurant, grocery or large food waste generator participating in the Food Recycling Project, you cannot put landscaping green waste in your green food recycling bin; we can only process food waste to create electricity.)

Put in Your Green Cart

Landscape Trimmings

  • Brush
  • Flower cuttings
  • Flowers
  • Garden trimmings
  • Hay
  • House plants
  • Lawn clippings
  • Leaves
  • Prunings
  • Shrubbery
  • Straw
  • Tree twigs (4 feet or less in length and 6 inches in diameter)
  • Weeds
  • Wood chips

Food Scraps

  • Bones, shells
  • Breads, grains, pastas
  • Dairy products
  • Fruits
  • Food scraps, raw or cooked
  • Grease, in small amounts
  • Meats, seafood
  • Veggies

Food-Soiled Paper

  • Pizza boxes
  • Paper cups
  • Paper plates
  • Napkins
  • Paper towels (used for food spills, without cleaning fluids) 

Do Not Put in Green Cart

  • Ashes
  • Cactus, succulents
  • Large tree trunks and stumps
  • Pet waste or manure
  • Plastic bags, regular or biodegradable
  • Plastic, glass or metal
  • Poison oak, poison ivy
  • Rocks, concrete, sod or dirt
  • Treated or painted wood