Recycling and Food Scraps in the Kitchen

Why the rules are local

Recycling is run town by town, and the lists really do differ. The EPA's own guide tells you, item after item, to check with your local recycling program, and says the number inside the triangle on a plastic container "does not necessarily mean it can be collected for recycling in your community" (EPA).

Ohio shows how wide the spread is. Rumpke, which serves Cincinnati, the Columbus area and more, takes glass bottles and jars of all colors, cans, plastic bottles and jugs, tubs and cartons, but notes that cups and tubs are not accepted in its central Kentucky programs (Rumpke). The City of Cleveland says its focus is on five common items: paper, cardboard, glass, metal cans and plastic bottles (City of Cleveland). Even one city's own pages can disagree over time: Cincinnati's have said both no and yes on berry clamshells (City of Cincinnati).

Glass is the clearest example. Several cities have moved glass out of curbside bins to drop-off sites only, citing cost and contamination. Fargo-Moorhead did it in 2023, while Pittsburgh still takes glass at the curb (MPR News, RecycleNation). And not everyone has recycling at all: The Recycling Partnership's 2024 report found 73 percent of US households have access, 85 percent of single-family homes but only 37 percent of apartments (The Recycling Partnership).

The national label program, How2Recycle, handles this with three honest tiers: Widely Recyclable when at least 60 percent of Americans can recycle an item, Check Locally below that, and Not Yet Recyclable below 20 percent or where sorting and markets are a real problem (How2Recycle). The tiers move, too: in January 2025 it moved aerosol cans from Widely Recyclable to Check Locally (Packaging Dive).

So, apart from a few rules that hold almost everywhere, this page uses only three phrases: usually, check your town, and usually not. It never promises that a particular item is recyclable where you live.

When there is still food inside

The food comes out first, every time. Where it goes depends on what it is.

• Fruit, vegetables, bread, coffee grounds, tea bags and eggshells can go in a home compost pile or your town's food scrap bin. Otherwise, the trash, where the rules allow it (EPA, NYC Sanitation).
• Meat, fish, bones, dairy and oily food stay out of a backyard pile; the EPA lists them as things not to compost at home. Many city food scrap programs do take them, and New York City accepts meat, bones and dairy. Otherwise, the trash, where the rules allow it (EPA, NYC Sanitation).
• Grease and cooking oil never go down the drain. Let it cool in a can or jar, then throw it out. Every city guide we read says the same (City of Sacramento, Palm Bay).
• Liquids like old milk or juice: pour them out so the container is empty.

Why food in the trash isn't harmless

In a landfill, food rots without air and makes methane. The EPA estimates that food waste is about 58 percent of the methane that escapes from municipal landfills, and that about 61 percent of the methane landfilled food produces is not captured (EPA).

The EPA's Wasted Food Scale ranks the options from best to worst. At the top is not wasting the food at all: prevent it, donate it, or upcycle it. Composting sits in the middle. At the bottom are the landfill, the incinerator and the drain. The EPA notes that food sent down the drain "decays in sewers and produces methane" (EPA).

All food is biodegradable. Where it ends up decides whether that helps: in a compost pile it becomes soil, and in a landfill it becomes methane.

City food scrap collection is growing but still small. BioCycle counted 14.9 million US households with access in 2023, up from 10.0 million in 2021 (BioCycle). In some places it's the law. Vermont has banned food scraps from household trash since July 1, 2020 (University of Vermont). New York City made curbside composting mandatory, with fines for building owners starting April 1, 2025 (NYC Sanitation, NY1). California's SB 1383 has required homes to put food scraps in the green organics bin since January 1, 2022, with enforcement left to local governments (City of Santa Monica).

What the labels mean

"Biodegradable" on a package says less than it sounds. Under the FTC's Green Guides, a plain degradable claim needs proof the whole item will break down within a reasonably short time after it's thrown away. For things that normally go to landfills, incinerators or recycling plants, the FTC calls unqualified claims deceptive "because these locations do not present conditions in which complete decomposition will occur within one year" (16 CFR 260.8). California prohibits selling plastic products labeled "biodegradable," "degradable" or "decomposable," and Washington banned those words on most plastic products from July 1, 2020 (California bill analysis, Resource Recycling).

"Compostable" is a real claim: the FTC expects proof that the item turns into usable compost in a composting facility or a home pile, and a clear note when composting facilities aren't available to most buyers (16 CFR 260.7). But it only helps if your town's compost program takes it, and many refuse compostable plastic. A CalRecycle survey cited by San Francisco in 2023 found only 3 of 17 responding compost facilities accepted it, while an industry-funded survey found far higher acceptance, so there is no single national number (San Francisco, Sonoma County, Packaging Digest).

Neither one goes in the recycling bin (EPA). And the number in the triangle names the type of plastic, not whether your town takes it (EPA). We don't judge any particular product's label here; we just explain what the words have to mean.

Where Kepta fits

Kepta doesn't sort your recycling. It helps you use food before it goes bad, so less of it ends up in the bin. Every item gets a freshness color, raw meat in the fridge gets a countdown to cook it, fridge leftovers get a countdown to eat them, and a daily reminder names the real item to use. When food is used or tossed, Kepta counts it at the price you enter, or at a plain typical price you can change if you skip it, so you can see what waste costs.

For more on single kitchen moments, like the half-used jar or the pizza box, see the Kepta blog.