According to the Iowa City Landfill and Recyling Center, starting on July 1, residents who put out compostable materials for curbside collection will be required to use a City-issued organics cart (25-gallons or 95-gallons, yellow lid), paper yard waste bags (for yard waste only), and/or bundles for collection.
The city began distributing the organics carts in 2018. The yellow-lidded carts come in two sizes: 25 gallons, which can hold up to 50 pounds of compostable material, or 95 gallons, which can hold up to 250 pounds. The 95-gallon cart has approximately the same size footprint as the city鈥檚 current 65-gallon trash cart.
The organic material collected in curbside collection programs 鈥� including food and yard waste, as well as pizza boxes and uncoated paper plates (but not cigarette butts or pet waste) 鈥� is taken to the commercial composting facility at the Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center. 鈥淲e can take items that are a little bit harder to break down and don鈥檛 go into most backyard compost piles, like meat bones and egg shells, because we get our compost pile to a high enough temperature that everything like that breaks down just fine,鈥� Iowa City Recycling Coordinator Jane Wilch told Little Village when the carts first started rolling out. 鈥淔rom start to finish, it鈥檚 about a year from when the product comes into the Iowa City Landfill to the final black soil compost is ready.鈥�