Compost Your Food Waste in Lee’s Summit
Drop-Off Household Food Waste
We’re excited to announce a new way to compost your household food waste with Kansas City Composting – Lee’s Summit!
Bring your food waste in 3–5 gallon buckets to the Lee’s Summit Resource Recovery Park and drop it off for just $2 per bucket. This program offers a simple and sustainable way to keep food waste out of landfills and turn it into nutrient-rich compost.
Here’s what you need to know:
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Participants are responsible for bringing their food waste to the drop-off site.
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Drop off your waste Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays, 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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Direct to compost – your food waste goes straight to the compost pile, keeping the process efficient and low-waste.
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Know what to toss – check out our compostables list to learn what items are compost-friendly and what to leave out.
Let’s work together to reduce waste and create a greener Lee’s Summit!
COMPOSTABLES
The general rule of thumb is, IF IT GROWS, IT GOES. This includes all fruit and vegetable waste. Please remove any stickers that might be on your produce.
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are great for composting—just remember to remove produce stickers, rubber bands, and twist ties before tossing them in.
Dairy and Egg Shells
Dairy and egg shells can be composted. Egg shells do not need to be rinsed, just throw them in your tote.
Pasta, Grains, Bread
Pasta, grains, and bread are compostable—even cooked or leftover portions.
Coffee Grounds, Filters & Tea Bags
Coffee grinds and tea bags are fine to go into your tote. You can even include your coffee filters and no need to break up your tea bags, you can put those in bag, string, tag and all.
Table Scraps & Plate Scraping
Table scraps are welcome, but skip meats and don’t pour in oil or grease—a little oil on cooked food is fine, just avoid large amounts. When in doubt, toss it out to keep the compost clean and effective.
ITEMS NOT ACCEPTED
Compost Bin Liners
While the most sustainable option is not to use a liner, you can use a compostable liner in your kitchen pail or organics cart. CMA is a global leader in providing industrial composting facilities an acceptance standard for compostables by performing field disintegration testing. Not all ‘certified’ compostable items will compost (break down) as fully or quickly as needed. This is because traditional certification standards measure compostability based on laboratory conditions, not actual field conditions, therefore some “compostable” items don’t fully compost in real world conditions. The result is either a finished compost with contamination or disposal of the compostable materials to a landfill, voiding their intended purpose. CMA certified bags are the only compo
You may choose to put CMA-W certified products in your compost buckets including bucket liners and CMA-W certified bags. Please note that we only accept items that are certified for windrow composting. To find certified options, please visit the Compost Manufacturer's Alliance.
Compostable items
Compostable paper and plastic products are defined as any single-use item utilized to serve food to customers that will breakdown into compost. Being able to compost your organic waste with some of your consumer waste keeps even more items out of traditional waste streams and is a great environmentally friendly solution.
There are now a number of manufacturers of compostable products offering single-use products ranging in scope from food trays to cups, from forks to compostable spoons, and everything in between.
It still sounds simple, everybody should do this! What's the catch?
While we encourage our customers to explore the compostable product alternatives available, the truth is that while there is a wide variety of "compostable" items, many of them are processed in different ways. We only accept items that are certified for windrow composting. This is the method that we utilize for commercial composting, adding our "browns" and "greens" into a long pile called a windrow.
With this consideration, if you want to explore these eco-friendly alternatives to traditional plastics and paper serving products, you can visit our friends at the Composting Manufacturers Alliance (CMA) to select items in a wide variety of design styles and capacities that are tested and certified compostable for the windrow method of composting. On their website, you will find items designated at CMA-W. Any product listed there with this designation is accepted by Kansas City Composting.
Kansas City Composting—Lee's Summit
HOURS OF OPERATION
Monday – Friday 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Saturdays 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sunday Closed
ACCEPTANCE
Accepts clean vegetative yard waste, tree chips, brush and logs, unpainted and untreated pallets. Tip fees apply.
Now accepting residential food scraps for drop-off.