By Emily Newcomer
Waste Management, Public Education Manager

Eating fresh vegetables straight from the garden is one of my favorite things about summer. Beyond enjoying delicious food, I also "close the recycling loop." I compost my food scraps and food-soiled paper in my curbside yard waste cart.

By "closing the loop" I mean recycling and then using items made with recycled materials. For example, I compost my garden and yard debris, and vegetable and fruit trimmings like tomato stems, onion skins, and corn cobs in my backyard compost bin.

In the spring, I use the compost in my garden for healthy, vibrant vegetable plants. Then I compost the scraps from those vegetables and the cycle continues.

There is another way to help close the recycling loop without creating an entire composting system in your backyard. Simply put your food scraps and food-soiled paper in the yard waste cart and let Waste Management do the rest. We will haul it to a local composting facility, where it's turned into nutrient-rich compost. That's another great way to close the recycling loop.

Another benefit of recycling is the potential to save money on your garbage bill. If you recycle more cardboard, paper and newspaper, glass, aluminum and tin cans, food scraps and food-soiled paper, you may be able to reduce the size of your garbage can and lower your garbage bill.

The average single-family household in King County throws away about 475 pounds of food scraps and food-soiled paper every year. When apple cores, stale bread and last week's leftovers go to our local landfill, those resources are wasted. Food scraps and food-soiled paper can be recycled in the curbside yard waste cart.

If you live in the city, you may be skeptical about collecting food scraps and food-soiled paper in your kitchen. Here are five reasons worth considering. Recycling this resource is good for the whole family and our community. We can:

Conserve our resources
Organic materials are valuable material resources that would be wasted in a landfill. Reducing the amount of garbage in our landfills and saving resources by recycling them directly benefits all of us. Our landfills last longer and that keeps the cost down.

Reduce pollution
Recycling reduces the amount of food scraps and food-soiled paper that end up in a landfill; therefore, reducing the amount of methane that the decomposing food scraps will produce. Methane contributes to global warming.

Reuse our waste
When you collect your food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard waste and let Waste Management haul it away it will end up back at your local garden store as compost. Use it in your garden for healthy plants.

Save money
If you recycle more cardboard, paper and newspaper, glass, aluminum and tin cans, food scraps and food-soiled paper, you may be able to reduce the size of your garbage can and lower your garbage bill.

Create new jobs in the local economy
The more we recycle the more we create new jobs and new opportunities for recycling "stuff."

To help you get started, Waste Management and King County have joined forces to increase yard waste, food scrap and food-soiled paper recycling in the curbside cart.

Waste Management is offering a free food scrap recycling collection kit with the first 500 new yard waste sign-ups between August 24 and October 31, 2011. Customers should call Waste Management at 1-800-592-9995 to sign up for yard waste service and request a food scrap recycling collection kit. (To be eligible for the free kit, residents must be Waste Management customers in Burien, Newcastle, Woodinville, Algona, Auburn, Federal Way, Maple Valley, Pacific, or Unincorporated King County.)

Recycling food scraps and food-soiled paper is easy. Collect these items and put them in your curbside yard waste cart:
Greasy pizza delivery boxes
Vegetable and fruit trimmings
Paper towels and napkins
Paper coffee filters and tea bags
Meat, fish, poultry, bones
Dairy products (yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.)

Visit www.recyclefood.com for a FREE compostable bag sample and get started now. Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WMPacificNorthwest