Renton neighborhood gobbles Thanksgiving dinner, saves food scraps for recycling

King County invites residents to participate in ‘turkey carcass round-up’

The average King County single-family household typically throws away about nine pounds of food scraps and food-soiled paper in an average week, and the King County Solid Waste Division (SWD) encourages residents to recycle their food scraps during the holidays – and all year ‘round – because recycling food is easy to do.

Today, residents from the Summerwind community in Renton dumped out a Thanksgiving holiday week’s worth of food scraps and food-soiled paper into a central neighborhood location to illustrate just how much holiday food scraps and food-soiled paper one community produces. The pile of scraps was estimated to weigh more than 350 pounds.

The “Turkey Carcass Round-up” event was sponsored by the SWD as part of its 2009 “Recycle Food. It’s Easy to Do” public education campaign.

According to a recent SWD study, about half of the households who put their curbside yard waste cart on collection day, put food scraps and food-soiled paper in the cart. Putting food scraps and food-soiled paper into the yard waste cart keeps them out of the landfill, and instead allows them to be recycled into nutrient-rich compost for gardens, parks and other green spaces.

“Our goal is to raise awareness about recycling food scraps and food-soiled paper and highlight how easy it is to collect your kitchen scraps in your curbside yard waste cart,” said Gerty Coville, King County Solid Waste Division Program Manager.

Although 87 percent of King County residents say they participate in their curbside recycling program, more than half of what ends up in King County’s Cedar Hills Regional Landfill is readily recyclable – and food is a huge part of that waste.

“This is a fun way to teach my kids about the new type of recycling, food scraps and food-soiled paper recycling,” said Brenda Collons, Summerwind community participant.

“This is the first year Renton has offered residential curbside food scrap recycling, and our residents have been very successful in reducing their garbage,” said Renton Mayor Denis Law. “Once people start recycling their food scraps they find it very easy to do.”

For more information about food scrap and food-soiled paper recycling in King County, visit www.recyclefood.com, or call 206-296-4466, 1-800-325-6165 ext. 64466.

Related information

Recycle Food. It's Easy To Do.

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King County Solid Waste