Comprehensive List of Accepted Compostable Items: 

• Fruit and vegetable scraps
  • This includes fruit pits!
• Meat, bones, and fish products
• Pasta, bread, and cereal
• Dairy products and egg shells
• Nuts and nut shells
• Coffee grounds, filters, and tea bags
  • For tea bags, be sure to remove the staple first!
• Paper towels and paper towel rolls
• Soiled paper food packaging
  • ONLY IF the food packaging is 100% paper and does not have a waxy liner. If the packaging does have a waxy liner, it is only compostable if the packaging says that it is “BPI-Certified Compostable.” When in doubt, throw it out.
• BPI-Certified Compostable Items
  
• Pizza boxes
• Muffin wrappers
• Flour and sugar bags
• Baking ingredients, herbs, and spices
• Household plants including soil
• Pet food
• Cheesecloth
  • 100% cotton, unbleached cheesecloth is compostable.
• Wine corks
  • This includes only natural corks and does not include synthetic corks.
    • Synthetic corks will look foamy
• Paper Plates
  • This includes 100% paper plates that do not have a plastic coating.
    • Tip: Sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether a paper plate has a plastic coating. Generally, a good trick is to try and rip the plate in half. If it tears easily and without coming apart into layers, it is compostable. If it's hard, or the top layer comes off, it is likely plastic coated and is not compostable.
• Tissues
  • Plain tissues are compostable (i.e. those that are not infused with lotions).
• Wax Paper
  • Plain wax paper is compostable, but it must not be confused with parchment paper or other baking sheets not specifically labeled as “wax paper.”
• Wood sticks
  • This includes products like ice cream sticks, coffee stirrers, and chopsticks.
• Newspaper
• Tissue paper
  • This is compostable as long as it isn’t glossy, dyed, or contains glitter.
• Matches
• Cheese rinds (natural rinds only; any rinds made of wax like Babybel are NOT compostable)

Items that are NOT compostable in our program

• PLASTIC
  • Plastic products are not compostable unless they specifically say they are either BPI-Certified Compostable 
    • Tip: You can search the BPI-Compostable database to see if your product is compostable using this website.
• ASTM D6400 and ASTM D6868 products
  • Orange County no longer accepts products with these standards. Compostable products must be BPI-Certified Compostable.
• Styrofoam meat trays
• Aluminum foil
• Clams, oysters, and mussels
  • They are basically rocks and are hard to breakdown.
• Candles, synthetic corks, and gum
• Artificial flowers and plants
• Rugs and carpets
• Cigarette butts and tobacco
• Dental floss and Q-tips
• Baby wipes
• Diapers
  • No human waste
• Disposable mop sheets
• Dryer lint
• Dryer sheets
• Vacuum cleaner bags and vacuum contents
• Hair, pet fur, and pet waste
• Dead animals
• Fireplace and BBQ ashes
• Items labeled biodegradable or oxo-biodegradable
  • Those labels are essentially meaningless.
• Drug pill and vitamin pills
• Ice cream containers
• Milk containers
• Oatmeal packets
• Paper towels, cotton balls, cotton rounds used with non-compostable cleaning products
• Produce stickers
• Takeout containers
  • They are not compostable unless they specifically say they are either BPI-Certified Compostable
• Receipts
• Popcorn bags
• Butcher paper
• Butter wrappers
• Fingernail clippings