How to Recycle Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
Peels, cores, rinds, and trimmings from fresh produce. Works in a backyard pile, a worm bin, and every municipal organics cart alike.
Quick answer
Peels, cores, and rinds are the easiest food waste to compost. Pull off the produce stickers, then cover the scraps with two to three times their volume in dry browns such as leaves or shredded cardboard. Every curbside organics program in the country accepts them, and a backyard pile handles them anywhere else.
- Recyclable
- Yes
- Typical value
- Bulk compost sells for roughly $15 to $75 per cubic yard depending on region and product type (Washington Dept. of Ecology, 2025). Home composting produce scraps replaces bagged soil amendment for beds and containers.
- 1Peel off produce stickers; PLU labels are plastic and survive composting as microplastic fragments
- 2Cut off rubber bands, twist ties, and packaging before the scraps go in
- 3Rinse scraps that are heavily soiled, though ordinary garden soil is fine to leave on
- 4Chop melon rinds, squash shells, corn cobs, and avocado pits into 2 to 4 inch pieces
- 5Store in a lidded pail; line it with newspaper if moisture pools
- 6Freeze scraps between weekly pickups if fruit flies or odors are a problem
- 7Limit citrus and onion in a worm bin rather than banning them; too much turns the bedding acidic
- 8Keep meat, dairy, and oily food out of a backyard pile, though produce scraps mix freely with everything else
- 9Cover each addition with two to three times its volume in browns, or 4 to 8 inches of dry leaves
- 10Bury fresh scraps 6 to 8 inches into the pile so animals cannot smell them
- Backyard compost bins
- Municipal curbside food waste collection
- Community composting programs
- Worm composting (vermicomposting) bins
- Drop-off food waste sites
Produce scraps are nitrogen-rich greens. EPA's home composting guidance is a volume rule: add at least two to three times the volume of browns for every volume of greens, and cover food scraps with 4 to 8 inches of dry leaves. That approximates a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 25:1 to 30:1, which is measured by weight, not volume. Do not read 30:1 as thirty scoops of leaves per scoop of scraps. For reference, food waste runs about 15:1, coffee grounds 20:1, dead leaves 35:1 to 85:1, and paper 170:1. Keep herbicide-treated plants, aggressive weeds, weeds gone to seed, and diseased or pest-infested plants out of a home pile: backyard piles reach 130 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit and only in the core, so the edges never get hot enough to kill pathogens or seeds. Avocado pits and corn cobs are dense enough to survive a full season whole, so break them up first.
Food is roughly 24 percent of what US landfills bury by weight, and buried food is the source of an estimated 58 percent of the fugitive methane escaping municipal landfills (EPA, October 2023). Of the 66.2 million tons of wasted food EPA counted from homes, retail, and food service in 2019, about 60 percent went to a landfill and just 5 percent was composted. Produce scraps are the part of that stream any household can divert without waiting for a city program, since an aerobic pile releases CO2 rather than methane. Produce stickers are the flip side: Washington's Department of Ecology reports composters spend about 21 percent of their budgets removing contamination, and stickers left in compost break down into microplastics rather than disappearing.
- Simmer onion, carrot, and celery trimmings into vegetable stock
- Regrow green onions, celery, lettuce, and bok choy from the root ends in water
- Feed suitable scraps to backyard chickens, rabbits, or goats
- Donate fresh produce to a food bank before it turns
- Cook overripe fruit into jam, sauce, or baked goods
- Freeze fruit scraps for smoothies and stock
- Run a worm bin if you have no yard; produce scraps are the standard feed
Accepted
- Apple cores, peels, and bruised apples
- Banana peels and overripe bananas
- Citrus rinds (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit)
- Melon rinds (watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew)
- Berry scraps and moldy berries
- Stone fruit pits (peach, plum, cherry, apricot)
- Pineapple tops, cores, and rinds
- Mango pits and peels
- Grape stems and spoiled grapes
- Tomato cores, seeds, and overripe tomatoes
- Potato peels and bad potatoes
- Carrot tops, peels, and ends
- Onion skins and scraps (limit them in worm bins)
- Garlic skins and sprouted cloves
- Lettuce, spinach, kale, and salad greens
- Broccoli stalks and leaves
- Cauliflower leaves and cores
- Celery ends and leaves
- Cucumber peels and ends
- Pepper cores and seeds
- Squash peels, seeds, and scraps
- Pumpkin guts and seeds
- Corn cobs, husks, and silk
- Cabbage cores and outer leaves
- Brussels sprout leaves and cores
- Asparagus ends
- Green bean ends and strings
- Pea pods and shells
- Radish tops and skins
- Beet greens and peels
- Turnip and parsnip peels
- Sweet potato peels
- Avocado skins and pits (chopped)
- Rhubarb leaves (small amounts only)
- Herb stems and wilted herbs
Not Accepted
- Produce stickers and PLU labels (plastic, and a top contaminant at compost facilities)
- Rubber bands and twist ties
- Diseased or pest-infested plants (home piles do not get hot enough to kill pathogens)
- Aggressive weeds and weeds that have gone to seed
- Grass and plant material treated with herbicide
- Produce still in packaging
- Black walnut leaves and hulls (juglone stunts many garden plants)
Estimated value: Bulk compost sells for roughly $15 to $75 per cubic yard depending on region and product type (Washington Dept. of Ecology, 2025). Home composting produce scraps replaces bagged soil amendment for beds and containers.
Can citrus peels go in compost?
In an outdoor pile, yes, without any special handling. The caution applies to worm bins, where extension services say to limit citrus rather than ban it, because a lot of peel at once turns the bedding acidic. Oregon State hedges even on that, saying citrus may produce acidic conditions and may be toxic to worms. The often-repeated explanation that d-limonene poisons worms has no research behind it. If your bin does turn sour, pull the peels out, sprinkle a little agricultural lime, and fluff the bedding.
What about avocado pits and corn cobs?
Both compost, but they are dense enough that gardeners routinely dig up whole pits a season later looking much as they went in. Smash pits with a hammer or quarter them, and cut cobs into roughly 1 inch segments. Some commercial facilities screen them out because they outlast the rest of the batch.
Can I compost rotten or moldy produce?
Moldy and rotten produce composts fine, and the mold is just fungi doing the work early. Remove stickers and packaging first. Leave out produce carrying a plant disease such as late blight or powdery mildew, because a backyard pile reaches 130 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit only in its core and the pathogen can survive at the cooler edges to infect next year's garden.
Do onions and garlic kill beneficial compost organisms?
There is no evidence they harm an outdoor pile, so use them freely. EPA does suggest keeping strongly odorous foods like onions and garlic out of worm bins, which is about the worms and the smell rather than about killing off compost bacteria.
Should I wash produce scraps before composting?
Rinse only the visibly dirty ones. Garden soil clinging to a carrot carries microorganisms that help the pile. Rinse anything that got cleaning product or chemicals on it. You do not need to wash conventional produce to protect your compost: no extension service or agency recommends excluding conventionally grown scraps over pesticide residue.
Can I compost cooked vegetables?
Small amounts are fine in a backyard pile, which is EPA's own position. What usually comes with them is the issue, since butter, oil, and salt attract animals and fats break down slowly. Bury cooked vegetables 8 to 12 inches into the center of the pile, or send them to a municipal organics cart, which composts hot enough to handle them.
How long does it take for vegetable scraps to turn into compost?
An actively managed pile that you turn weekly and keep damp will break scraps down in a few weeks and give you finished compost in a couple of months. A pile you ignore takes most of a year. Chopping scraps smaller is the single biggest speed-up, because decomposition happens on surface area.
Can I put produce with stickers in my compost?
Remove them first. PLU stickers are three-layer plastic and do not break down; they fragment into microplastics that stay in the finished compost. EPA lists them as a do-not-compost item and tells you to sift any you missed out of finished compost. Washington's Department of Ecology calls them a common and difficult contaminant, notes some contain PFAS, and reports composters spend around 21 percent of their budgets on contamination removal. France banned non-compostable produce stickers starting in 2022.
Recycling centers that accept Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
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