In the last year, San Francisco’s garbage company has collected 105,000 tons of food scraps, compostable materials and yard trimming and turned the “waste” into 20,000 tons of compost for 10,000 acres, according to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The source of the compost is organic waste contributed by 2,000 restaurants, 2,080 large apartment buildings and 50,000 single family homes that use their green bins. All of the compostable plates, cups and utensils sold by Green Event Shop and Go Mega Green webstores can be “disposed” in the green bins.

Composting in San Francisco succeeds on many levels. The compost is very high quality and sells like gold at $12 per cubic yard, or $480 per truckload. The compost company, Jepson Prairie Organics adjusts the compost recipe to fit particular local farm needs. The compost helps local farms grow fruits, vegetables and wine that come back into San Francisco’s farmers markets and top-end restaurants.

This successful, local composting loop helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. By removing organic waste from the landfill, there is less methane gas released into the air (methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing global warming.) Compost enriches soil and good soil is the best tool for fighting global warming, because it’s the largest reservoir of Earth’s carbon.