MARCH 2026 UPDATE

See current schedule* for residential food waste drop offs at Sugar Roots Farm (daily), Recirculating Farms, Galvez Garden, Bulbancha Blooms Community Garden, REALCYCLE at City Park (food scraps and aluminum only - no glass or carboard), Audubon Park and Schmelly’s Dirt Farm (open daily until sunset). NOTE: The folks at Sprout NOLA accept scraps during their Volunteer for Veggie programming - which is only held when the weather is good.

Drop offs are typically “rain or shine” (except for Sprout NOLA) but it is always best to contact the sites directly. Our partners all run and are responsible for their own collections. Ideally, they notify us when they need to cancel a date / or close for an extended period of time so that we can update our website, Facebook and Instagram. Many of our sites do shut down during the hot summer months, and over various holiday periods.

Compost NOW promotes, supports and provides resources to several free residential food waste collection programs throughout New Orleans. We partner with several local farms and gardens who accept frozen food scraps on site, what we call “direct-to-farm” or “direct-to-garden” drop offs. We also promote two “hosted” collections, at Audubon Park near the golf course pro shop and with REALCYCLE at City Park’s Sunday Crescent City Farmer’s Market near the City Putt parking lot. The main rules are: No Meat, No Bones, No Dairy.

There have also been food waste collections at Crown Community Garden, Barcelo Gardens, Sankofa Community Garden and Pelican Gardens in the past, but I am not certain their current status. Collections at Speak Easy Farm and Earth Lab in the Marigny are closed until further notice. If you live nearby any of these sites, and would like to drop off your scraps — they may have enough capacity for that, just not for a public drop off site. For example, last I spoke with them, Sankofa Community Garden was no longer able to offer specific open hours for food waste drop offs — but if you happen to see them in the garden, they are happy to have you drop off your scraps, just go inside to ask/arrange. Obviously, this works best for those who live nearby.

Please DO NOT drop off your food scraps outside program hours or if the bins are not there.

Leaving food scraps when/where they are not supposed to be can lead to ants and rodents, and makes more work for our amazing partners!  

If you are interested in having your drop off site added, please send us an email.

Expanded Hours & Collections at Galvez Garden (2317 N Galvez):

Galvez Garden has increased their food waste drop off hours to 10am-2pm every Sunday AND they will also be collecting aluminum cans in blue bins as part of their new partnership with NOLA Cans 4 Food (who use the funds from recycling those cans to buy ingredients for meals which get distributed to New Orleans Community Fridges and unhoused people in the city).

Applications are now closed for a free Easy Backyard Compost Bin. The USDA grant we had received, along with the City and other partners, was cancelled last year so we only had so many bins to giveaway. Demand far exceeded supply!

Thank you for your understanding and patience as we continue to transition from an organization that organizes and hosts food waste collections, to one which primarily supports and promotes the efforts of others. Check Compost NOW’s Facebook page or our Instagram for regular posts regarding updates and drop-off locations. We will try to mention other drop off sites that we are aware of happening throughout the city, as we believe it is important to offer decentralized locations in order to reduce “food waste miles.”

*Our founder had been mostly on hiatus due to her mother’s health crisis in Summer 2025 so the Food Scrap Drop-Off map on the Food Scrap Collection Page has NOT been updated since Spring 2025.