Sacramento Composts Diners' Restaurant Leftovers

The Sacramento Bee reports the launch of WasteRight Sacramento, an initiative that seeks to redirect waste from restaurant diners' plates to composting facilities and biofuel plants. The program, now required for restaurants that produce at least four cubic square feet of waste per week, is one of the ways the city is committed to reducing its landfill contribution 75% by 2025. By arranging regular pickups of organic scraps through city waste collectors, restaurants can significantly reduce the amount of trash destined for the dump, and help fortify the soil at local farms.

California creates 30 million tons of waste each year, more than 200,000 tons of which comes from the Sacramento area. California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery estimates that 30% of that waste, which includes paper products and landscaping and grass clippings, can be diverted to process into compost, mulch and energy.

Sacramento joins San Francisco in large-scale organic waste management, but as far as efficiency goes, Seoul, Korea is still the gold standard.