Five businesses in Issaquah and Sammamish were recently honored as some of the best workplaces for recycling and waste reduction in King County.

The Issaquah School District, PCC Natural Market, Lake Washington School District, Pogacha of Issaquah, Horizon Height Properties and Rowley Properties, Inc. were all listed by the county for a continued commitment to reducing the amount of waste produced by their companies.

King County’s Solid Waste Division named 65 companies to the list, now in it’s third year. In order to be eligible companies had to meet at least 10 of 33 requirements, ranging from offering recycling bins at every desk, to collecting food scraps for on or off site composting.

In the Issaquah School District, there are programs for recycling and waste reduction at all 27 facilities. Students and staff are encouraged to recycle as much as possible, including cell phones, printer cartridges, electronic equipment, along with the more standard recycling items. Eight of the district’s school also recently started a food scrap recycling program which helped to reduce their solid waste by 50 to 75 percent.

John McCartney, the district’s resource conservation manager, said the food scrap recycling program has been going on for three years, and he expects the program to double the number of schools it is in this fall.

“It just really started taking off this past year,” he said. It started at Issaquah Valley Elementary school and quickly spread to several of the middle schools, a fact which was a pleasant surprise to Mccartney.

“It’s been a really popular program,” he said. “It’s something that really engages kids on a daily basis and hopefully transfers to outside the school.”

Issaquah Middle School, for example, creates about 8 cubic yards of food waste a week and McCartney said the other middle schools are pretty much on par with that number. Twice a week Cedar Grove composting trucks stop by to empty the 4 cubic yard containers kept at each school. The district pays for bio-bags which line the bins in each of the cafeteria’s making hauling the food waste from the cafeteria to the composting containers easier and cleaner, Mccartney said. The only thing the district doesn’t do is compost the materials on site, which Mccartney said is a very work intensive project.

In the Lake Washington School District, students use reusable baskets or plates rather than disposable styrofoam trays in the cafeterias and 27 of the district’s 48 school have food composting programs.

Meanwhile Pogacha of Issaquah is also working to decrease their footprint by composting food waste. According to the company, which had reservations about composting food waste, the program has turned out well.

“The initial reaction was that it was going to be hard,” said Sarah Barnes, the manager and marketing director at Pogacha. “It has been so simple.”

The restaurant started recycling food waste within the last six months, on top of recycling cooking oil, something Pogacha has been doing for years. She said even though it’s only saving them a little bit of money, it’s had a big impact on the amount of waste not going to the landfill. Barnes said the restaurant sends about 15 cubic yards for composting each week.

“As business owners we can make little changes that have such a big impact. Its simple and really worth it,” said Barnes.

Rowley Properties also earned a spot on the list for their construction waste recycling program. The company collects and recycles a large number of construction items, such as copper, steel and lumber used at various projects, as well and more typically recycled materials.