Apartment Compost Pilot Diverts Food Waste

Athens Services, a Los Angeles-based recycling and waste management company, and environmental nonprofit Global Green USA have partnered to introduce food scrap recovery to more multi-family buildings, starting in LA’s Lincoln Heights.

The 16-unit residence pilot represents the largest residential building to implement food scrap collection in the city to date.

This compost pilot is the first of a series of food scrap recovery systems that Global Green will be helping deploy over the next year in major cities in California and New York. Food waste accounts for 35 percent of the landfilled waste in Los Angeles, releasing 1.2 million tons of greenhouse gases.

After paper, food waste comprises the greatest volume of waste going into US landfills, the EPA says. In 2012, 36 million tons of food waste were generated, but only 3 percent of this waste stream was diverted from landfills.

Athens Services, one of the few haulers in L.A. with a composting facility, will be transporting all organic discards, including vegetables, meat, dairy, food-soiled paper, and compostable serving ware, from the apartment complex to their facility in Victorville, Calif., where it will be turned into valuable soil amendment.