Program helps Renton businesses comply with food waste law

Washington state businesses will soon need to compost whether they like it or not, and Renton wants to help businesses transition to the new policy.

The city offers free advice, assistance and supplies to businesses with the looming House Bill 2301 coming into effect over the next few years. The bill, which became law this spring, adds more requirements for organic waste collection by businesses.

Renton Solid Waste Program Manager Meara Heubach said the city’s Public Works Department launched a waste reduction assistance project to help businesses prepare for these separation requirements of organic waste and reduce the amount of recyclable and compostable materials in landfills. Essentially, the new law requires businesses to have dedicated bins for this process.

“The state wants to get food waste and other organic waste out of landfills because the gases they release contribute to climate change, in a nutshell. So, the state enacted two laws recently that are really focused on getting food and other similar waste out of the landfill and using it for better purposes,” Huebach said. “There are some really big laws with a lot of moving parts, but some aspects of the law directly impact businesses, and they’re essentially moving businesses and residential homes to a state where they won’t be able to put food waste or plants, other things like that, in the garbage anymore.”

Huebach said the city would prioritize assistance to businesses staffed or owned by Vietnamese and Spanish speakers. Huebach said they’re doing this because, by the numbers, Vietnamese and Spanish are the most common languages in Renton spoken by people who don’t speak English or speak it well.

Because of this focus, Huebach said, the city hosted two outreach events. One of these events was on May 20 at Anchovies and Salt, a Vietnamese restaurant, and the second was on May 29 at Mexican restaurant Torero’s Cocina Mexicana and Cantina. Programming was available in Vietnamese, Spanish and English. Huebach said they’re doing this because they want to be sure the message is getting out to everyone in Renton, so that knowing English isn’t a barrier to participating in the program and complying with the new laws.

Huebach said the free items they are giving out to businesses right now to assist with composting include posters, labels and stickers for containers in English and Spanish or English and Vietnamese. Other items include tall, medium, or small bins and lids, along with compostable bag liners and trolleys for some of the larger containers so it’s easier to move containers.

Huebach said some businesses already have to comply with the organic material separation laws, but those businesses are places such as large stores and businesses that make food products. Additionally, she said she doesn’t know how these laws will be enforced, but she clarified that establishments that fall under the term “businesses” are broad, so some businesses may unexpectedly be affected.

“When I say business, I don’t just say a place with a cash register. It means schools, it means churches, it means temples, it means nonprofits, any organization that has an address that isn’t a single family home or an apartment. Medical offices, all of them. You don’t have to have a cash register for this to apply to you,” Huebach said. “And we want to support businesses in getting there. So, that’s why we have this new program that we just recently launched.”

Huebach said a positive aspect of this new law is that businesses that utilize organic bins more than garbage bins will save money.

“The cost of putting out 30 pounds of garbage is a lot more than putting out 30 pounds of food waste, and so when we are putting out food waste in our garbage, we’re paying a lot more,” Huebach said. “The container, for instance, a 64-gallon cart full of garbage, is gonna cost you more than a 64-gallon cart of organics. It’s cheaper.”

Huebach noted that the King County landfill is getting nearly full, and once the landfill is full, taking out the trash will most likely become more expensive since waste will need to be shipped farther away.

In addition to saving money, she said more composting is better for the environment. She cited stats from King County showing that only 28% of what is in the landfill is really garbage. She said the rest is stuff that could have been recycled or composted, with 28% of what was thrown away in the landfill being organic waste.

“When organic materials such as food are put into a landfill, they break down anaerobically because there’s no oxygen circulating through there, unlike in compost, where oxygen is flying through the compost piles. But food waste in a covered landfill, which is what we have, breaks down anaerobically and produces methane,” Heubach said. “Methane is a really potent greenhouse gas that traps a lot of heat. One of the better case scenarios is when you have a system at the landfill that can capture that gas, that methane that is produced from organic waste, and use it for something like heating homes or powering vehicles.”

Effective dates

At the beginning of 2024, businesses that generate at least eight cubic yards of organic material waste per week were required to arrange for organic materials management services specifically for organic material waste. At the beginning of 2025, businesses that generate at least four cubic yards of organic material waste per week will be required to arrange for organic materials management services specifically for organic material waste. Finally, beginning in 2026, businesses that generate at least 96 gallons of organic material waste per week will be required to arrange for organic materials management services specifically for organic material waste.