If you don’t have a space at home to begin your own composting, the city of Pittsburgh has a Food Waste Drop-Off system. Simply drop off your food waste at our city-run farmer’s markets at East Liberty on Mondays or Northside on Fridays.

Compostable wastes are biodegradable wastes such as food waste, garden waste, animal waste and human waste.

Home Composting Vegetable scraps, fruit peels, grass cuttings, cardboard, eggshells, ground coffee and loose tea. They can all be put into your compost bin, along with compostable packaging. You can add your pet’s waste too. Home composting is usually slower than commercial, or industrial, composting.

For example if you add one cup of food wastes like vegetables or fruits, add one cup of dry wastes like dry leaves, sawdust, newspaper scrap too. Do not forget to add soil once every week. To fasten the process, you can add semi composted soil to your compost….Flip.

Collect your compostable materials throughout the week and place them outside on collection. Throughout the week, place your organic materials into your indoor compost bin. You can also collect biodegradable materials in your home office, bathrooms, and bedrooms.

What To Compost

• Fruits and vegetables.
• Eggshells.
• Coffee grounds and filters.
• Tea bags.
• Nut shells.
• Shredded newspaper.
• Cardboard.
• Paper.

The best way to dispose of compostable plastics is to send them to an industrial or commercial composting facility where they’ll break down with the right mixture of heat, microbes, and time. If this type of composting facility isn’t available in your area, the only other option is to throw them in the trash.

While biodegradable items refer to just any material which breaks down and decomposes in the environment, compostable goods are specifically organic matter which breaks down, the end product having many beneficial uses which include fertilizing and improving soil health.

Compost is ready or finished when it looks, feels and smells like rich, dark earth rather than rotting vegetables. In other words, it should be dark brown, crumbly and smell like earth.

The answer is false that all household waste can be decomposed to form compost. Explanation: can only be formed of substances which are biodegradable.

Simply scatter the remnants of the bin under trees or shrubs in an out-of-the-way area of the property. Nature will take care of the rest. Dismantle and recycle the bins or donate to a gardening neighbor or community garden.

Biodegradable waste can be commonly found in municipal solid waste as green waste, food waste, paper waste and biodegradable plastics. Other biodegradable wastes include human waste, manure, sewage, slaughterhouse waste.

If you live outside the City of Pittsburgh, your municipality may have a compost pile made from leaf litter collected each fall. Allegheny County Composting Directory (disabled) – find an archived list here.

Pittsburg residents have up to three carts – one each for garbage, recycling, and organics. Residents can choose different service levels based on cart sizes for a greater choice of collection service pricing, along with easier and more convenient recycling and weekly yard waste collection pick up.

Mount Diablo Resource Recovery (MDRR) is the franchised solid waste hauler for the Pittsburg community. Pittsburg residents have up to three carts – one each for garbage, recycling, and organics.

Two (2) On Call Pick-ups: For your convenience, MDRR-Pittsburg customers, with regular paid garbage service, may call MDRR at (925) 682-9113 and schedule 2 free of charge pick-ups per calendar year. MDRR will collect up to 12 bags of garbage or yard debris not weighing more than 50 lbs per bag, on your regularly scheduled pick-up day.