What Can You Compost in Houston?
Answer
With OnFarmCompost's Houston-area service, businesses can compost all food scraps — fruit, vegetables, meat, bones, dairy, plate scrapings, coffee grounds, eggshells, and small amounts of pan grease. We keep out fryer oil, paper of any kind (napkins, towels, coffee filters), and all plastics, including items labeled compostable. Drums are exchanged weekly.
What you can compost in Houston
If you’re diverting food waste in Houston, it helps to know exactly what goes in the drum. OnFarmCompost accepts a clear, practical list built for restaurants, offices, and food producers — and keeps out the items that contaminate compost.
Accepted: all food scraps
- Fruit and vegetable scraps
- Meat and bones
- Dairy
- Post-service plate scrapings
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- Small amounts of pan grease
If it’s food, it goes in. Because the material is sheet-composted on local farms, we don’t need to screen out meat or dairy the way backyard piles do.
Excluded: fryer grease and oil
Fryer oil is already collected — and paid for — by rendering services, so we don’t take it. Pan grease in small amounts is fine.
Excluded: paper of any kind
No napkins, no paper towels, no coffee filters. Paper products can carry PFAS (“forever chemicals”), and that has no place in soil that grows food. A stray napkin won’t ruin a load, but the rule is no paper.
Excluded: plastics of any kind
No plastics, period — including anything labeled “compostable” or bioplastic. Those items don’t break down in our on-farm process and end up as contamination in farmland soil, so there’s no certification exception.
How pickup handles it
Businesses use 55-gallon food-grade drums with gasket-sealed lids, placed outside near the dumpster. Your kitchen crew keeps its own lined garbage can inside, ties the liner like a normal trash bag, and carries it to the drum. We exchange drums weekly — haul the full ones, weigh them, leave clean ones.
Service area
We serve Harris County and Fort Bend County. Send us your business address to confirm your route.
Why the accepted list matters
Sticking to the list keeps the compost clean and the farmland it feeds safe. Food scraps of every kind break down into balanced soil on the farm. Paper and plastic are the real contaminants — PFAS and microplastics don’t belong in ground that grows food — so they stay out, along with fryer oil that already has a home.
What happens after pickup
Once your scraps are collected, they go directly to local farms and are sheet-composted on the land they’ll feed. The finished compost stays on those farms — your kitchen waste becomes working farmland soil instead of landfill methane.
Start diverting your food waste
Call 713-822-3398 or contact us. Free waste audit, 1-week free trial, $10 per barrel, no contract.
Related Questions
Can I compost meat and dairy?
Yes. We take all food scraps — meat, bones, and dairy included, along with post-service plate scrapings. Gasket-sealed drums and weekly exchange keep odor and pests contained.
Are compostable products accepted?
No. We take no plastics of any kind, including items labeled compostable or bioplastic. They don't break down in our on-farm process and contaminate the compost.
What about grease and oil?
Small amounts of pan grease are fine. Fryer grease and oil are excluded — rendering services already collect and pay for that, so keep that arrangement.