Kirkland Students Spearhead Downtown Composting Campaign

KIRKLAND, WA — The City of Kirkland is enlisting the help of student volunteers to encourage composting beyond the home. A new, gray can marked "FOOD ONLY" now lives on Park Lane, where the city hopes customers from neighboring restaurants and businesses will drop their food scraps or compostable packaging.

In a news release the city acknowledged it can be a challenge to figure out what to recycle, compost or trash and the program is meant to make the differences a little more clear. For the next several weeks, the students will check under the lid and take notes on how much people are using it and whether the right things are ending up inside.

City officials hope adding the extra option will keep compostable items out of the trash and get back to the soil where they help restore nutrients. Another goal is keeping dirty items out of recycling containers, which are often cluttered with things that contaminate the whole batch.

You can learn more about the city's compost and recycling programs at an upcoming Sustainability Fair at City Hall on October 12th starting at 1 p.m. Follow along with the students via The Tommorrow Project's instagram page.