Piggy Pail
A Residential Food Scrap Collection and Recycling Service
Add perishable and expired food to the bucket we provide you.
A Las Vegas Livestock employee will dump and rinse your bucket on your scheduled collection day.
The food collected will be pasteurized before becoming food for the piggies!
Bi-Weekly pickup is currently available for the following zip codes: 89031, 89032, 89084, 89085, 89108, 89128-89131, 89134, 89143, 89149, 89166.
Not servicing your area yet? Please show your interest below.
FAQs
What is allowed in the bucket?
All food items are acceptable in the bucket. Meat and animal products are allowed; pigs are omnivores and they do not have a prion disease. That means they cannot get a disease from eating healthy pork or other animal proteins. We would rather not receive coffee grounds, it is not toxic however it can make the pigs hyper! For more ideas on how to recycling your coffee grounds, read here. Some acceptable items you may not have thought about include: egg shells and cooking oil/grease.
Is trash ok?
We are not a landfill so please keep trash minimal, however packaging is OK. Please recycle anything you can. We have a machine that can separate food from its packaging, it can even remove produce stickers! All the food will be processed this way before it is fed so don’t feel guilty if you do not want to open the yogurt cup that has been hiding in the back of your refrigerator.
Why does this service cost money?
Even though the food becomes feed for our pigs, a lot happens to it before it does. Our farm, Las Vegas Livestock, has to be licensed by the USDA in order to feed food scraps to pigs. We are the only licensed farm in Nevada! This licensing process includes random inspections to make sure our food is being pasteurized correctly. The pasteurization process can be costly, and that is why more farms aren’t doing it. There are also costs associated with the residential collection, however the more popular this becomes in Las Vegas, the cheaper we hope to make the service.
Why should we feed livestock instead of composting?
Composting is a great solution for people that are able to recycle food at home. However for those who can’t, feeding livestock is actually a more preferred method according the EPA. That is because you are reducing the impact of the Earth’s resources to raise livestock. Also less methane is produces than if food were to be composted. Commercial composting in the desert is a costly process. It requires a lot of water and it can be dangerous in the heat.
Will my bucket stink?
Food can be stinky if its left in warm air, but we have some tips to help. It is always a good idea to leave your expired food in the refrigerator or freezer until the night before pickup. You can even freeze your kitchen trimmings until you are ready to put them in your bucket. Leaving the lid tightly sealed will keep the bucket from stinking up the area its stored in. For more ideas read here.
Can you collect food from offices, apartments or restaurants?
We are very familiar with servicing commercial buildings and restaurants. That is actually how our farm got started. Please contact us at info@lvlfarm.com for a quote! If you are in an apartment, no problem! Sign up just like regular.
Recycle your food with us
Las Vegas Livestock has designed a food scrap processing system that allows them to handle all kinds of food scraps. This system includes a depackaging machine that separates food from packaging such as yogurt cups, mayonnaise packets, and cases of crackers. Also included in the system are large batch cookers that allow LVL to pasteurize the feed for the livestock more efficiently. Consider recycling with us if your food is no longer safe to donate.
