Feb 17 - OR - Portland to Collect Residential Food Scraps

According to The Oregonian, the City of Portland has announced they will begin a pilot program to collect food scraps from 2000 residences in April. Participants in this program will be required to mix leftover food with yard trimmings, and this material will be collected weekly and taken to one of the regional composting facilities. Removing the materials that rot from the regular trash will allow Portland to reduce the frequency of garbage collection, and it will also help the city shrink its carbon footprint by avoiding potent greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.

Portland's pilot program comes on the heels of several recent successes with food scrap recycling by other West Coast municipalities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland.