AUSTIN (KXAN) — Starting Monday, 53,000 homes will be added to the City of Austin’s Curbside Composting Collection program.

This means Austin Resource Recovery will provide the program to nearly three-quarters of its customers.

“This will definitely help,” said Gena McKinley with the city’s resource recovery department. “In our trash stream, we see roughly half of that as organic so by getting more customers to have that curbside compost service, that’s really moving a lot of that organic material out of the landfill and into the diversion, into a better place.”

The city has a goal to divert 90% of materials from landfills by 2040. At present, the City is around 42% and hopes to be at 75% by next year. Officials are hoping the expansion of the compost program will make a difference.

“Once you compost everything —all your food scraps and things from your house — and you recycle all your recyclable materials, there should be very little over that’s going into your trash bin and yet we still continuous contamination in the recycling bins,” said Melissa Ann Rothrock, a commission member of the city’s Zero Waste Advisory Commission.

The city hopes to roll out the program to its remaining customers by next year, and if anyone is not sure what goes in the compost trash can, city officials say, “If it grows, it goes.”

The compost program collects food scraps, yard trimmings and food-soiled paper, and converts them into nutrient-rich compost.

Austin Resource Recovery will host an information session on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Trinity Church in Austin.