Boston expanding curbside food-waste pickup program

The mayor's office announced today that Boston will triple the number of households from which it will pick up food waste once a week from the current 10,000 to 30,000, starting in July.

Residents who sign up and are accepted into the program, will get one of those small green food-waste containers in which to put scraps and other food material, for collection on their normal recycling days. The material will then be either turned into compost or turned into a slurry at a Charlestown plant, which will then ship that to an "anaerobic digestion facility" in North Andover to be turned into "biogas" for generating electricity.

In June, compost bin “starter kits'' will be delivered to residents whose curbside pick-up service begins in July. Another batch of curbside bins will be delivered in July with service beginning in August. The “starter kits'' include an onboarding manual, a roll of liners, kitchen bin, collection bin, and a magnet outlining what food scraps are and are not accepted in the program. Accepted materials include common household food scraps such as coffee grounds, fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, and eggs.