Business & Commercial Compostables

The City of Seattle doesn't allow food and compostable paper in the garbage. This includes food-soiled pizza boxes, paper napkins and paper towels. Businesses that generate food waste or compostable paper must subscribe to a composting service or self-haul their food waste to a transfer station for processing.

Seattle businesses can save money and reduce waste through the City of Seattle's Commercial Compost Collection. The service costs less than regular garbage pickup, and food scraps and yard waste are turned into compost. The Commercial Compost Collection service accepts all food scraps (including meat, fish, dairy and produce), food soiled paper, waxed cardboard, and yard debris. View list of acceptable compostable items (pdf).

Compostable Items Flyer

This flyer showing what is accepted as commercial compost is available in 14 languages and are in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format.

• English
• Amharic
• Cambodian
• Chinese
• Korean
• Laotian
• Oromo
• Russian
• Somali
• Spanish
• Tagalog
• Thai
• Tigrinya
• Vietnamese

Establish a composting program

To receive collection containers and reduce your garbage service, contact a service provider. Certified compostables collection service providers include:

• Cedar Grove Composting - (877) 994-4466
• Recology/CleanScapes - (206) 250-7500
• Republic Services - (206) 332-7705
• Waste Management - (855) 894-9447

Your service provider will deliver an outdoor compost collection container and establish a collection schedule.

Related links

Compost Collection Guidelines
Food Service Packaging Requirements
Common Food Waste Questions