Resourceful rubbish

Butte County will hopefully see emptier landfills and richer soil thanks to the implementation of a food-scrap composting program at certain grocery stores and restaurants.

This month, a number of local restaurants and grocery stores started tossing produce, bread and other compostable food scraps into designated bins as a part of Recology Butte Colusa Counties’ first food-scrap composting program, according to a recent press release.

Food scraps collected in the bins are turned into nutrient-rich compost, which returns carbon to the soil and reduces the production of greenhouse gases. The compost product can then be used by farmers as an alternative to chemical fertilizers.

The program was modeled after a similar one in San Francisco, which has received more than 200 applications from vineyards and farms in Northern California to use the nutrient-rich soil made from food scraps collected in the region.