Scrap It! Buffalo

Simply choose a container to collect in and get going! We recommend a large tupperware, bowl, or smal pail with lid. It’s best to store small amounts of scraps in the fridge and then take it out to your brown tote as needed.

While prepping meals, toss unused fruit and veggies parts in your collection container. Got leftovers that have gone bad? Toss them in too!

Once you are a part of the program, you will receive additional tips and tricks for collecting at home.

Your food scraps will travel to our site on the East Side, where they will go on an 8-month journey to be transformed into compost! This process starts when the food scraps (“greens”) are mixed with wood chips and horse bedding (“browns”). The pile then becomes colonized with insects, bacteria, and fungi that do the work of breaking down the organics. The pile is turned several times, then screened, and prepared for sale back into the community! Your food scraps will contribute to the wellbeing of hundreds of WNY farms and gardens.

We can accept garden trimmings, but we are not set up to accept sticks/branches, large amounts of leaves, grassing clippings, or sod. Please leave these materials out.

Each Spring, Fall, and Christmas, we try to offer a special yard waste service, so watch for an email about that.

Simply head to your Customer Portal and choose Account & Billing, then choose Request to Cancel. We will reach out to confirm the cancellation and provide further instructions as necessary.

It is natural for participants to assume they might be entitled to some of the finished compost that is created from their food scraps. We want to take a moment to explain why free compost is not included when signing up for Scrap It! Buffalo. As you can imagine, there is a lot that goes into the coordination and management of collecting food scraps from +2500 households all over the city. From sign up and all the behind the scenes administration, boots on the ground labor to empty the totes, to vehicle acquisition and maintenance, insurance, compostable liners and all the other misc fees and expenses - you can see these costs add up. Once we get all these food scraps back to our facility (instead of to the landfill) we have another year-long process to turn those food scraps into finished compost which can then be used to grow more food. This also involves management, labor, equipment, property upkeep and improvement. When this process is complete, there is yet another step before the compost is ready to go back out into the community. It must be tested, screened and in some instances, bagged. In order to make this program a reality for our city at the moment, it must be cost effective and fit within the given budget. At this point in the program the funding only covers the costs that go into the collection portion of the process. Also, although we do sell the finished compost back to the community, in no way does the revenue earned match the cost to produce the product. Just as when you put your recycling and trash out to the curb each week and do not expect anything in return, composting is the same concept. The difference here is that our small business is processing your would be waste right here in our own community into a valuable resource that will again be used right here in our community - to heal, to nourish, to grow!

Please review this document with special tips and notes for each season!

This is a weekly service! If you do not think you have enough in your bin one week for a pickup, simply SKIP your pickup using your Customer Portal.

Your pick up can be any time between 7am and 5pm, and will likely vary from week to week. If you’d like an ETA on the day-of, you can check your Customer Portal.

First, that is totally normal! The totes are larger than most households need.

If you have >5lb of food scraps, we encourage you to put it out for pick up. If you have <5lb, or don’t need service for a different reason, then you should use the SKIP function in your Customer Portal. Under Service & Support, choose Service Calendar and from there you can skip any service date. You can also sign up for automated text reminders and simply reply SKIP to cancel that next day’s service. Please note that skips must be in by midnight the night before service.

Please note: Our brown totes do have a 40 lb weight limit, so keep that in mind when filling your tote and try to remain below this.

Absolutely! We just ask two things:

1. Put in an Address change request through your Customer Portal. We will reach out to confirm the change and notify you of any changes to pickup day.

2. Take your brown tote with you to your new address and continue composting as normal!

After each pick up, you should receive a new liner. If your liner goes missing or is not received, we recommend using a brown paper bag to line your tote and collect scraps.

You can also purchase spare liners from your Customer Portal so you always have extra on hand.

Unfortunately, totes do go missing on occasion. Luckily, we are able to provide replacement totes upon request. Please contact us to get a replacement tote delivered.

While you are tote-less, you can either pause scrap collection or collect into a different vessel (such as a tupperware container or bucket), and add that material once you receive the replacement tote.

While we do mostly follow the City of Buffalo for weather related schedule changes, holiday schedules may differ. In either case, we will aim to notify you as soon as possible. If you do not hear from us, then you should expect your pick up as normal.

We do not allow landlords to register on behalf of their tenants. Rather, tenants will need to pre-register on their own. This is because we need a direct line of communication with the folks who are actually doing the scrap collection and putting out the totes.