San Francisco’s new food recycling program — the first in the U.S. that requires all food waste from homes, apartments, businesses, and restaurants to be recycled and composted — has been enthusiastically embraced by city residents, officials say.

Although the program was officially launched on Wednesday, city officials say that residents have been recycling food for weeks and are already setting aside about half of the city’s 500 tons of daily food waste.

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Article by Amy Hengst appearing courtesy of Matter Network.

Once upon a time, the levies along the rivers in Sacramento, California were becoming unstable, so the city planted Eastern white oak trees to help root and hold them in place. The trees grew to maturity, but eventually the city re-evaluated them and realized they were no longer stabilizing the levies. The trees needed to be taken out.

Such is the story from Earth Source Forest Products, an organization that stepped in and bought up all the old oak wood, to recycle and resell. The company claims to be one of the first companies certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an independent, non-profit organization that strives to make sure its members harvest and manufacture their hardwood products responsibly. According to Earth Source, the FSC is the strictest of the standards-setting bodies for responsible forest management.

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