Waste Prevention Information Exchange

Compost

Also see the topics Agriculture and Gardening and Landscaping in this directory.

CalRecycle Programs and Services

• Food Scrap Management, including:
  • "Bio"degradable Plastic and Paper Products—It would actually be more accurate to call these degradable, not biodegradable, because manufacturers have developed some products that decompose by exposure to light or moisture, and do not necessarily require microbes for decomposition.  However biodegradable products are included in this list.
  • Food Scrap Composting
  • Food Scrap Composting at Special Events
• Organics Outlook, including:
  • Compost and Mulch Source List
  • Home Composting
  • Purchasing Compost and Mulch
  • Worms

CalRecycle Publications

CalRecycle has hundreds of printed or Web publications on composting. You can find them with our our publication search page or our Web site search page. The Organics Publications directory includes many commercial and noncommercial compost publications from CalRecycle.

CalRecycle publications include:

• Composting, Nature's Way to Recycle—A how-to booklet on composting.  Also available in Spanish.

Other Resources

Other Documents

•  Reusable Totes, Blue Wrap Recycling, and Composting—The last part of this three-part fact sheet addresses food composting in hospitals. Produced by U.S. EPA Region 9 Pollution Prevention Program. (Mention of trade names, products, or services does not convey, and should not be interpreted as conveying, official EPA or CalRecycle approval, endorsement, or recommendation. Other disclaimers apply.) Portable Document Format (PDF), 462 KB.

Web Sites

• Composting—Information from U.S. EPA.
• How Composting Works—A thorough, but not too technical, description of composting from Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works.  Suggests interesting home or classroom projects: experiments with compost, and home trash audits.
• How to Compost—From HowToCompost.org
• www.mastercomposer.com