Visit our Reuse section for great ideas on salvaging your household items and creating new functions for them.

Yard trimmings and food scraps make up nearly 1/6 of what the average household throws into the garbage. Change your throwaway habits and opt to reuse your perishable organics for your lawn and garden. Additional benefits to composting include:

• * Improves the quality and fertility of your soil*
• * Conserves natural resources
• * Reduces weeds
• * Reduces run-off of fertilizer and pesticides into storm drains

Like any recipe, you'll get the best results if you use the right mix of ingredients to make your compost. The key materials are nitrogen-rich "greens," carbon-rich "browns," water, and air. All of these are essential, and easy to mix together for quality compost.

How to Backyard Compost

A backyard compost is perfect for any household with a yard. It is a simple practice that requires little effort and few materials. There are several methods of composting including: placing materials in open piles, burying materials in trenches or enclosing materials in bins.

Here are the Six Easy Steps of Backyard Composting:

1. Obtain a Bin

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• * Compost bins can either be homemade or purchased.
• * Check out Clean Air Gardening for a variety of compost bins and other environmentally friendly lawn and garden supplies.
  
  
  

2. Gather Your Materials

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• * Waste is classified as either brown or green material. To begin, use equal amounts of green and brown materials and chop them into 1-inch pieces (the smaller the pieces, the faster they decompose).

 

Greens provide nitrogen, and act as a source of protein for the microbes that are hard at work in your compost pile.

• * Green leaves
• * Coffee grounds
• * Tea bags
• * Plant trimmings
• * Raw fruit and vegetable scraps
• * Fresh grass clippings
• * Hair

Browns are a source of carbon, and provide energy for the microbes.

• * Dried grasses, leaves and some weeds
• * Straw
• * Woodchips
• * Twigs and branches
• * Sawdust
• *Shredded newspaper

Avoid these items:

• * Diseased or infected plants
• * Meat (including fish) and meat by-products, grease, dairy products
• * Pet food
• * Glossy or treated paper
• * Seeds from tomatoes, cantaloupes, watermelon,etc
• * Pesticide and herbicide treated plant materials
• * Pet feces and litter
• * Invasive weeds
• * Charcoal ash
• * Corncobs and stalks

3. Dump Your Materials Evenly Into Compost Bin

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• * Start with approximately 1 cubic yard of yard waste materials. Shred yard waste to less that 1" in size. Use equal amounts of green and brown materials and mix thoroughly.
  
  

4. Turn or Stir Your Compost Every 7 to 10 Days

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• * Stir the bin and add more water every 7 to 10 days. Remember to keep the bin full by adding fresh material regularly.
  
  

5. Keep Your Compost Hot

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• * Keep your compost between 120 to 140 degrees to help the materials break down properly
  
  
  
  

6. Harvest Your Compost

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• * Your compost is ready to use when it's dark brown, crumbly and smells like fresh-turned earth, generally within 2-6 months. You also should not be able to identify anything that was used to make it. To harvest your compost, remove the finished compost from the bottom of the bin (the finished material naturally collects there) and screen it using a simple 3/8" size screen.

Master Your Compost Skills

The County's Master Composter Program has excellent resources for home composting. Visit the site for any additional information including training classes to be an expert composter.

Below are the phone numbers and links for the Zero Waste Communities members. Click on your city to find out information specific to your location.
There are also links for Other Important Conservation Agencies and Organizations.

Community	Contact	Phone Number
Adelanto	Josie Vargas	(760) 246-2300
Apple Valley	Joseph Moon	(760) 240-7000 x 7610
Barstow	Belinda Barbour	(760) 255-5126
Big Bear Lake	Engineering Department	(909) 866-5831
Colton	Dennice Raygoza	(909) 370-5193
Fontana	Tony Mata	(909)350-6531 x 6772
Grand Terrace	Matt Wirz	(909) 430-2255
Hesperia	Julie Ryan	(760) 947-1589
Highland	Melissa Morgan	(909) 864-8732 x230
Loma Linda	Lynette Arreola	(909) 799-4402
Rialto	Amy Crow	(909) 421-7221
San Bernardino County	Special Programs Unit	(909) 386-8701
Twentynine Palms		(760) 367-6799
Victorville	Dana Armstrong	(760) 955-8615
Yucaipa	Jennifer Shankland	(909) 797-2489 x236
Yucca Valley	Jessica Rice	760-369-7207 x227
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Other Contacts
Beverage Container Recycling		1-800-RECYCLE
CALRecycle		916-922-4027
Earth 911		1-800-CLEAN UP
San Bernardino County		1-800-OILY CAT
Household Hazardous Waste

The Zero Waste Communities of San Bernardino County is made up of 15 cities and the County of San Bernardino. They have partnered to educate their residents and businesses on waste reduction, reuse, and recycling. Reducing waste helps save valuable resources and decrease disposal at our landfills, ensuring a better quality of life.

For our follow-up waste characterization assessment, we got back into our hazmat suits for round two at the Materials Recycling Facility where we sampled and sorted through 525 lbs. of recyclables and 1,126 lbs. of trash. The contents were analyzed from the same Del Rosa Estates homes we sampled for our baseline measurement back at the start of February.

In order to compare “before” and “after” results, we wanted to measure our follow-up numbers against our baseline numbers to see if there were any substantial changes in both recycling and reducing the overall contamination rate (trash, household hazardous waste and other non-acceptable blue bin items).

Our outreach highlighting recyclables and non-acceptable blue bin items of the month sparked some tangible, successful results! In the follow-up, we found that there was a 54% decrease in blue bin contamination. This time around, 21% of recycling bin contents were contaminants, while 79% of recycling bin contents were recyclables, cutting our contamination percentage by more than half compared to our baseline measurement. Historically, the average contamination rate in the City of San Bernardino is about 40%. Our baseline assessment affirmed this, as we discovered a 46% contamination rate. Dropping that rate through a tailored outreach plan coupled with amazing community energy, down to 21% is quite an achievement.

Check out the table below that shows the amount of recyclables and contamination we observed in the recycling bin at the beginning and end of the project.

This 54% contamination reduction observed from the wrap-up assessment is meaningful because it shows us that together, we made a real difference! Del Rosa Estates, the pilot area, has been a phenomenal participant showing that they truly care about recycling right.
We want to give a special thanks to our terrific partners who’ve made this Curbside Recycling Pilot Program successful and possible: The City of San Bernardino and Del Rosa Estates Neighborhood Action Group (DRNAG)! At the end of the day, most importantly, we needed the participation of the residents – so great job Del Rosa Estates for kicking bad habits to the curb and recycling right.

Check out our photo stream to see the rest of the pictures from our assessments!

For May, the monthly recyclable is Paper! The Curbside Recycling Program wants to extend a reminder that it accepts all paper. Paper is one of the most important materials used universally virtually every day. Paper has a very high recovery rate. If measured by weight, more paper is recovered for recycling than all glass, plastic and aluminum combined. Keep recycling right!

For April, the monthly recyclable is Glass!

The Curbside Recycling Program wants to extend a reminder that it accepts all glass. Glass is actually one of the most popular materials recycled. Glass containers are 100% recyclable, can be recycled endlessly without any loss of quality and recovered glass is used as the majority ingredient in new glass containers. Keep recycling right Del Rosa!
 

What stays out of the blue bin? Food Waste. Food scraps should stay out of the blue bin and in the trash! Food waste that ends up in the recycling bin contaminates recyclables and makes the recyclables unrecoverable.

Look for your postcard reminder in the mail in the month ahead!

You should have already received your recycling reminder magnet and hopefully it has found a cozy space on your refrigerator. The recyclables reminder magnet serves as a reference when you separate your recyclables. Are there any items on the recyclables list that surprises you? Are there any items on the non-acceptable blue bin list that surprises you?

As part of the Curbside Recycling Pilot Program with The Zero Waste Communities, City of San Bernardino and DR NAG, the program strives to increase the amount of curbside recycling materials collected and decrease the trash that ends up in recycling bins.

As such, a monthly recyclable and non-acceptable item postcard will be mailed to you to in April and May to focus on several key items that should and should not go in the recycling bin.

Keep recycling right!