Growing in garbage: Bay Area farmers turning green waste to gold while helping the planet

TO THE GARBAGE collecting company Recology, not all trash is the same. There’s one type of waste that constantly trails behind us every breakfast, lunch and dinner, and is increasingly showing up in our landfills: food scraps.

The eggshells, the coffee grounds, the banana peels, the brown leaves off the outside of lettuce — though this could be considered “garbage,” it can actually turn into a material that a plethora of Northern California farmers find precious: compost.