Food is the largest category of material placed in municipal landfills. You may think, why is that so bad? It’s just food, doesn’t it decompose? Sadly, it’s a bit more complicated. There is very little oxygen in landfills meaning food and other organic matter does not decompose as it should. As a result, food scraps in landfills produce a harmful greenhouse gas called methane. Methane is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide and significantly contributes to climate change.

What can you do to keep your food scraps out of the landfill? You can drop them off at any of our 10 Fairfax County Park Authority Farmers Markets and we’ll compost them for you!! Composting is a process by which organic waste – anything derived from animal or plant sources — is broken down naturally into nutrient-rich soil through the addition of oxygen and water. This natural decomposition process produces significantly less methane and helps enrich the soil we live off of.

Last year, FCPA Farmers Markets diverted over 120,000 pounds of food scraps from ending up in a landfill. Let’s top that in 2024. Join the composting craze by bringing your food scraps to any of the 10 FCPA Farmers Markets. You can collect scraps in old coffee cans, plastic bags – anything will do.

For a full list of what you can drop-off, visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/farmersmarkets/composting or call 703-642-0128. To find a Farmers Market, visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/farmersmarkets.