As of this week, residents of Grey Cloud Island Township, Landfall, Oakdale, St. Paul Park and Woodbury can discard food scraps in special compostable bags for curbside recycling.

The expansion of Washington and Ramsey counties’ Food Scraps Pickup Program, which has been available to residents of Newport, Cottage Grove, North St. Paul and Maplewood since October, means more food scraps will be turned into compost. All food items are accepted, including pet food, officials said.

The communities eligible to participate in the Food Scraps Pickup Program haul their trash directly to the Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy Center in Newport. The center is equipped with the sortation technology that pulls the food scrap bags from the trash, said Sam Ferguson, program coordinator for the Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy Center.

Officials are working with transfer stations within the two counties “to install additional sortation technology that will allow the counties to expand the program to communities that haul their trash to transfer stations,” Ferguson said.

Food scraps such as fruit and vegetable peels, eggshells and bones make up about 20 percent of trash by weight collected in Ramsey and Washington counties.

The program offers an easy, accessible and environmentally friendly way for residents to manage food scraps at home, Ferguson said.

The program will roll out over multiple years and eventually be available to all residents of Ramsey and Washington counties.

Residents interested in participating in the program can sign up and place a bag order at no cost on the program website or by calling 651-661-9393.

An annual supply of 60 compostable bags will ship directly to participants’ homes with an instruction guide on how to start collecting food scraps. Each week, or when a food scrap bag is full, residents will tie a knot in the top to ensure it is sealed and then place the bag in their trash cart or dumpster to be collected by their trash hauler. The program-provided food scrap bags are designed to be extra durable, so they don’t tear open during the trip in the garbage truck.

After collection, food scrap bags and trash are hauled to the Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy Center, where the food scrap bags are sorted from the trash by robotic sorting technology and sent to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Organics Recycling Facility to become compost.

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