Waste Sorting Help Sheet – Seattle Public Schools

Compost

• All food scraps, including: fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds & filters, tea bags, shells & bones, pasta & rice, eggshells, nutshells, bread & grains, meat, fish & dairy.
• Food-soiled paper, including: uncoated (not shiny) paper bags, paper towels & napkins, greasy pizza boxes, uncoated (not shiny) food-soiled uncoated paper plates and trays, & shredded paper.
• Paper lined with compostable material (ex: brown paper boats that say “compostable” on the bottom) and waxed paper
• Plant and yard waste, including: flowers and houseplants, leaves, branches and grass clippings.

Recycling

• Paper – Homework, drawings (once both sides are used is best,) colored art paper
• Cardboard
• BIG Lids and caps larger than three inches in diameter
• Empty juice boxes, milk cartons, plastic bottles, coffee cups and lids (larger than 3”)
• Empty plastic cereal bowls and juice cups with lid removed
• “Spoon clean” plastic yogurt and applesauce cups with lid removed

Garbage

• SMALL plastic caps and lids less than three inches in diameter
• Plastic straws, forks, spoons, knives
• Pencils, pens, glue sticks, erasers, and crayons (or you can re-melt broken crayons into new ones to use again)
• Foil juice containers (ex: Capri Sun)
• Plastic film (ex: Saran Wrap, film lid on single-use cereal bowls)
• Chip bags, ziplock bags, candy wrappers, carrot/apple/roll bags
• Liquid – please pour out all liquid into a sink or basin at the sort line