City of Buffalo Mayor's Office

City of Buffalo Department of Public Works, Streets and Parks

This pilot program, created in collaboration with the City of Buffalo and Massachusetts Avenue Project, seeks to improve recycling rates and allow the City to become cleaner and healthier through the creation of compost using food scraps which would serve as natural healthy fertilizer, and therefore can be useful for our community parks, gardens, and trees, instead of being sent to landfill. This program is viewed as a response to excessive food scrap waste in the city of Buffalo contaminating water streams and therefore negatively impacting the environment and surrounding land. The details of this pilot include further instruction as to food scraps that are considered acceptable for the program such as: vegetable & fruit scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, cut or dried flowers, nut & egg shells. Unacceptable materials include: meat, chicken, fish, greasy & oily food, dairy, animal waste, litter or bedding, coal or charcoal, coconuts, diseased or insect-infested houseplants, or biodegradable /compostable plastics. The accepted materials will be transferred courtesy of the City of Buffalo to the Buffalo River Compost.