What Can You Compost in Houston?
What you can compost in Houston
If you’re diverting food waste in Houston, it helps to know exactly what goes in the drum. OnFarmCompost accepts a short, specific list built for produce markets, supermarkets, grocers, produce operations, and food producers, and the reason the list is short is worth understanding before you compare it against anyone else’s.
One condition: source-separated or depackaged
The material list below applies to organics that arrive clean: kept separate from packaging at the point of generation, or depackaged before pickup. Single-material loads like produce culls qualify too. A load that arrives mixed with plastic, cardboard, or general trash isn’t accepted, because sorting it out on arrival isn’t a service we offer.
Accepted: vegetative food waste
- Produce culls, trim, and overripe or unsold fruit and vegetables
- Vegetative food material kept source-separated from packaging
- Bulk dry goods, depackaged: flour, grain, expired shelf-stable produce
- Coffee grounds and eggshells
- Clean wood chips and untreated woody material
For a grocery or a produce market, that list is most of what the back room throws away. Culls and trim are the volume, and they arrive as a single clean material without anybody having to sort a bin.
Why the list stops where it does
Most composting services route material to a permitted facility. This one doesn’t. The material goes onto working farmland and is sheet-composted on the land it will feed, which is what keeps the finished compost with the farmer instead of in a bag on a shelf.
That choice comes with a constraint, and it is the constraint that shapes this whole page. Under Texas rules a site taking vegetative material, clean wood, and manure sits in a different category than one taking meat, dairy, fish, or greases. Keeping the feedstock vegetative is what lets a working farm receive this material without changing what is required of the landowner. Take meat, and every receiving farm in the network moves category at once.
So the honest version is this: the list is short because the destination is a field, not a facility. If your material is produce, that is a match rather than a limitation. If your material is back-of-house kitchen waste, a facility-based service is a better fit and you should use one.
Excluded: meat, bones, fish, and dairy
Not accepted, for the reason above. This is a firm line rather than a case-by-case judgment.
Excluded: post-service plate scrapings
Anything that has already been to a table comes back mixed with napkins, serviceware, and film. Back-of-house food waste doesn’t qualify on condition, separately from what the food itself is.
Excluded: grease and oil
No pan grease, no fryer grease, no grease-trap waste. Fryer oil is already collected and paid for by rendering services, so that arrangement is worth keeping.
Excluded: paper of any kind
No napkins, no paper towels, no coffee filters. Paper products can carry PFAS (“forever chemicals”), and that has no place in soil that grows food. A stray napkin won’t ruin a load, but the rule is no paper.
Excluded: plastics of any kind
No plastics, period, including anything labeled “compostable” or bioplastic. Those items don’t break down in our on-farm process and end up as contamination in farmland soil, so there’s no certification exception.
How pickup handles it
Businesses use 55-gallon food-grade drums with gasket-sealed lids, placed outside near the dumpster. Your crew keeps its own lined garbage can inside, ties the liner like a normal trash bag, and carries it to the drum. We exchange drums weekly: haul the full ones, weigh them, leave clean ones.
Service area
We serve Harris County, Fort Bend County, and Montgomery County. Send us your business address to confirm your route.
What happens after pickup
Once your material is collected, it goes directly to local farms and is sheet-composted on the land it’ll feed. The finished compost stays on those farms. Your produce waste becomes working farmland soil instead of landfill methane.
Start diverting your food waste
Call 713-822-3398 or contact us. Free waste audit, 1-week free trial, $10 per barrel, no contract.
Related Questions
Can I compost meat and dairy?
Not with us. Meat, bones, fish, and dairy are not accepted. This material is composted on working farmland instead of at a permitted facility, and keeping the feedstock vegetative is what allows those farms to receive it under Texas's exempt tier. Adding animal material would change the regulatory footing of every farm in the network, so the answer stays no even when the volume is worth having. A service that runs an industrial facility can take it.
Are compostable products accepted?
No. We take no plastics of any kind, including items labeled compostable or bioplastic. They don't break down in our on-farm process and contaminate the compost.
What about grease and oil?
No grease of any kind, including pan grease, fryer grease, and grease-trap waste. Rendering services already collect and pay for fryer oil, so keep that arrangement.