Back to School, Back to Better Habits: Make Composting Part of Your Routine
It’s back to school season! Image of chalkboard saying, “Welcome back to school! Let’s learn how to compost!”
The backpacks are packed, the school supplies are purchased, and the first-day outfits are ready. As Kansas City families settle back into the school-year routine, there’s another habit worth adding to the list: composting.
Between packed lunches, after-school snacks, busy weeknight dinners, and the occasional forgotten banana in the bottom of a backpack, the school year can create a lot of food scraps. The good news? Many of those scraps don’t belong in the trash.
Composting is a simple way to turn everyday food waste into something useful—and getting the whole family involved can make it a habit that sticks.
Start With the Lunchbox
A lot can happen to a lunch between leaving the kitchen in the morning and coming home in the afternoon.
Apple cores, banana peels, sandwich crusts, leftover pasta, vegetables, and other food scraps can all add up throughout the school week. Instead of automatically sending those scraps to the trash, make composting part of the cleanup routine.
For younger kids, keep it simple:
“Is it food? If yes, it probably belongs in the compost!”
At home, kids can help scrape unfinished food from plates or empty lunch containers into your compost collection can. It’s a small action, but it helps them understand where their food goes after they’re finished eating.
Turn Composting Into a Family Routine
The easiest habits are the ones that become automatic.
Try adding composting to routines you already have:
After dinner: Scrape food scraps into your compost can before putting dishes in the sink.
When unpacking lunchboxes: Check for leftover food and compost what you can.
During meal prep: Keep your compost can nearby for fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds, and other food waste.
Before trash day: Take a quick look in the trash. How much of it could have gone into the compost instead?
On the weekend: Make dropping off your compost part of your regular errands.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s creating a habit that works for your household.
Make composting part of your school-day routine:
PACK IT: Bring a reusable lunch and pack only what you’ll eat.
SAVE IT: Bring uneaten food home instead of tossing it.
SCRAP IT: Put food scraps in the compost instead of the trash.
REPEAT IT: Small habits add up!
Download the handy guide!
What Can Go in the Compost?
If you’re new to composting, you might be surprised by how much you can compost.
KC Can Compost accepts a wide variety of food scraps, including:
Food scraps: fruits and vegetables, leftovers, meat, poultry, fish, bones, eggs and dairy, bread, pasta, grains, coffee grounds, filters, and tea bags.
Some paper products: paper napkins, facial tissues, kitchen paper towels, unwaxed cardboard and paper, pizza boxes, and certain uncoated paper food containers.
There are also a few things that should stay out of the compost can. Plastic bags and wrap, plastic bottles and containers, glass, metal, foil, Styrofoam, produce stickers, and other non-compostable materials belong in the appropriate waste stream—not the compost.
When in doubt, don’t throw it in! Check KC Can Compost’s accepted-items guidance before tossing something questionable into your compost can.
Make It a Learning Opportunity
Composting is more than a way to get food scraps out of the trash. It’s a chance to help kids understand a bigger idea: what we throw away doesn’t necessarily disappear.
When food scraps are sent to a landfill, they break down without enough oxygen and produce methane. When those same scraps are composted, they can become nutrient-rich compost that helps support healthy soil.
That makes the compost can a pretty great classroom.
Ask your kids questions like:
Where does our food come from?
What happens to it when we're finished eating?
Which parts of our lunch can become compost?
What do you think happens to the compost after we drop it off?
You might even challenge the family to see how little food waste they can send to the trash during the school week.
Ready to Get Your Scraps Together?
Whether your family is brand new to composting or you've been doing it for years, the start of a new school year is a great time to reset your routines.
KC Can Compost makes it easy for Kansas City-area households to collect their food scraps at home and bring them to convenient drop-off locations across the metro. KCMO residents can also use the city’s community composting program at designated KC Can Compost drop-off locations at no cost.
So as you check off the back-to-school list, add one more item:
Get your scraps together!
A banana peel, an apple core, or yesterday’s leftovers may seem small—but when Kansas City families make composting part of their everyday routines, those small actions add up to a greener good.
Ready to start composting? Learn more about composting at home, find a drop-off location, and get your family started with KC Can Compost.