San Francisco starts mandatory composting this week
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Posted By Ellen Hong - Mon, Nov 09 2009 at 6:23 PM ESTIt's Easy Being Green
San Francisco’s mandatory recycling law has been in effect for two weeks and it’s about time. While our city leads the nation with the most comprehensive mandatory recycling law, the step we've been missing is green recycling in apartments.
I began composting 6 months ago. At first it was frustrating because there isn’t a green bin in our building. I’ve been advocating for about 9 months to get a green bin but my building’s Board of Directors are slow to enact the request. .... More
Posted By Shannon - Mon, Oct 26 2009 at 3:14 AM ESTComposting is great, but....
Anyone out there feeling smug because you "recycle" - get over yourself. Recycling is terrible for the environment, at least the way we do it is. If you put a bottle in a recycle bin, it travels around the world, gets combined with other carcinogenic materials by economic slaves and travels back to you - in a less usable, less attractive product. Composting is really good, except for the fossil fuels used to pick it all up. We should compost and let it stay in our yard.
Posted By Penny - Fri, Oct 23 2009 at 4:11 PM ESTWish every city did this
I compost my own material as we don't have an option like this where I live (Winnipeg, MB). I would have no problem paying for this service either. Everyone should have to pay for the pollution they cause- large manufacturers and polluters first, though!
Posted By Ashley - Thu, Oct 22 2009 at 5:32 PM ESTDifficult Adjustment
I agree with many of you here- this is important, its good more cities are doing this sort of thing, but it is a hard adjustment for the people. Everyone is talking about how easy this is, but I still don't understand how it actually works. The compost is picked up and handled by a company? For more on zero waste initiatives. . . .... More
Posted By HammerTime - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 10:05 PM ESTNothing new up here
I'm in Hamilton Ontario, Canada and we've been doing all kinds of recycling here for years...
- compostables such as food leftovers, grass clippings, coffee grounds etc. get done;
- paper products are separated - flyers, newspapers, cardboard all get done;
- plastics - grocery bags, cottage cheese and yogurt tubs, etc. are all separated and all get done.
I'm to the point where my only non-recyclable waste is about a half a small plastic grocery bag per week... its.... More
Posted By MotherLodeBeth - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 9:17 PM ESTAll cities and suburbs should be doing this!
We are fortunate to live in a rural area where ALL kitchen and yard waste are composted. And SF should be praised not mocked by FOX News, because something like 40% if household waste is compostable which if anyone knows about compost, means making healthy soil. We literally produce no garbage that is sent to a land fill.
Posted By gabi - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 7:40 PM ESTLeft Behind in Indiana
If you recycle in Indianapolis, let alone Indiana, you're the oddball. And I can only recycle PETE & HDPE plastics. When will this "World Class" city as civic leaders love to call Indpls, get with a world class attitude and begin recycling!
Posted By Joe - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 10:35 AM ESTnot the first city
Seattle already has mandatory composting
Posted By G-smerph - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 10:03 AM ESTWhat about worms
Should responsible vermiculturalists have to pay (or be fined) for these barrels too? Transporting all this material to a few regional composters is a huge waste when many can deal with their organic waste in house.
Posted By Dee Kay - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 8:50 AM ESTBoulder has been doing this for a while
My brother in Boulder CO has had a can like this for a while now - though it is smaller and these really seem too large, even if you add yard waste to it.
I used to live in Washington DC, which has a horrible rat problem, and I can't see this working there without feeding the rats. My counter top compost scrap collection is the cool metal pail doesn't smell, but it goes moldy after a few days and apparently then I shouldn't add it to the compost bin outside.
Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 9:35 PM ESTThe city needs smaller cans
All well and good, but many people live on hillsides in SF. And, therefore, many people need to carry their garbage cans (now 3 of them) down large flights of stairs in order to reach the curb. These large cans, meant for rolling, are completely inappropriate for such use.
B
Posted By nina - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 9:12 PM ESTrats!
We have tons of rats in San Francisco. I'm wondering how all this handy food is going to affect the rat population!
Posted By Bill Downs - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 7:34 PM ESTHow about LA?
Here in Los Angeles, we've had green barrels for several years now. Green is for yard clippings as well as some garbage.
We have black, blue and green barrels. And LA recently started charging us homeowners $35 a month for this service.
Posted By Chris McLaughlin/SF Gardening Examiner - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 7:06 PM ESTPost-Compost Question
I'm curious. After the city has composted the resident's waste and it becomes a usable soil amendment, does the city give it back to their residents or SELL it back to the residents (or whomever)?
Posted By Robin - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 5:24 PM ESTAttractive, smell-free countertop compost bucket
My husband is in the US Army, stationed in Germany. The Germans recycle nearly EVERYTHING, including food and bio waste. I often wondered why the US couldn't be doing the same thing. Leave it to San Fran to be on the cutting edge!
Recycling food and bio waste makes good sense to me. The sheer quantity of it will amaze you once you start recycling it. I estimate 1/3 of our trash is food and bio waste, if not more. I have been stunned by how little trash we have left that must go to the land.... More
Posted By Jennifer Grayson - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 7:04 PM ESTThank you!
Thank you -- I included your recommendation in my post today about why Angelenos aren't using the green organic waste bins. I'm ordering my Max Air II today!
http://www.theredwhiteandgreen.com/2009/10/21/why-arent-angelenos-using-...
Posted By Valerie - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 1:03 PM ESTTHANK YOU!!!
I live in LA (with the green yard waste/composting bins) and had been planning to get a countertop bucket this very morning, when I came across your post. Thank you so much for the link; I just ordered a bucket and a year's worth of BioBags! I so appreciate the tip! :)
Posted By Jackie - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 2:17 PM ESTOther waste to consider
Stop flushing personal hygiene items, they pollute our water. Utilize Sani SAC™ bags. They are made from polyethylene and an additive, which utilizes a unique ion prodegradant system that will cause a high level of controlled degradation in the finished product after a period of light exposure. The bags ultimately degrade into CO2, H2O and biomass, whether they wind up in a landfill or other avenue of the waste stream. The non-toxic bags are harmless to humans, animals or plant life.
Posted By Valerie - Wed, Oct 21 2009 at 1:09 PM ESTBetter yet, stop using disposable hygiene items!
I switched from tampons to the DivaCup a couple of years ago, and never looked back. It's a one-time purchase of around $20-25, lasts several years, completely comfortable (you don't even feel it), and you never again add to water system/landfill waste with one-use, disposable pads or tampons!
For the info: http://www.divacup.com/
For the cheapest ones I found online, $18.68!: .... More
Posted By John Petry - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 2:15 PM ESTGreat but smelly and occasionally confusing
The idea is basically sound and I support it. However, it has been a confusing start. I have been separating according to the instructions provided since the start of the "voluntary" program. But I still get notes about how I am putting things in the wrong containers even when I follow the instructions to the letter. I constantly have to keep watch on friends and family members to make sure they follow the rules. Let's hope they don't start fining those of us who are trying. And let's.... More
Posted By Michelle - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 1:56 PM ESTGreat!
Wish Cincinnati and other cities in Ohio and the country would take the initiative and follow San Fran's lead. Great to see this!
Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 1:52 PM ESTorganic materials in landfills do not decompose, they emit metha
Phil, there are other costs that you are not considering.
"if there are an additional 10 tons of coffee grounds in a landfill, then those coffee grounds will biodegrade and that’s the end of that"
Organic materials in landfills do not decompose, despite the popular myth that they do. Organic materials actually release a significant amount of methane, a green house gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. By composting organic materials in a controlled environment, that.... More
Posted By Cathy Meyer - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 4:47 PM ESTCompost doesn't sit in landfills.
As a San Francisco Resident and an advocate, volunteering with the SF Unified School district in the Green Schools Program I can tell you that our San Francisco compost does not sit in a landfill emitting methane. The San Francisco compost has already been purchased by Central Valley and Bay Area farms and Napa and Sonoma County vineyards, making it a new revenue stream for the City and County of San Francisco. That makes good fiscal sense to me as a homeowner (property tax payer). Our.... More
Posted By Pamela Drake - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 1:19 PM ESTLove it!
This is *awesome* …
I hope other cities, like Washington, DC will take note & follow the leader!
DC “recycles”, but in some parts of the city the recycling rate is a pitiful 8% & in other parts a weak 28%… And it’s commingled recycling… Are we humans *that* lazy, that we can not even separate???
Camden Council (UK) did a study and found that more energy is used to separate materials after they have been collected than if residents sorted their.... More
Posted By Phil Signet - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 1:16 PM ESTConsider this data
The SF proposal makes 2 assumptions: (1) how much benefit the public receives from sorted trash and (2) how much it costs to require homeowners to sort their trash.
If you don’t think landfill space is a problem, then organic trash is the stuff that we don’t care about, right? We’re not talking about the mercury in twisty bulbs or the plastic in ipod packaging — if there are an additional 10 tons of coffee grounds in a landfill, then those coffee grounds will biodegrade and.... More
Posted By Ron King - Tue, Oct 20 2009 at 2:02 PM ESTgood analysis
and much better than the emotional arguments i"m used to.
SCAM
I was apart of a movement back in the 80's we built a recycling and composting plant in Florida that received bagged mixed garbage we recycled and composted 80% of the waste to be landfilled reducing the volume of waste entering the landfill by 90%. It was a huge success just 20 years to soon. We got caught up in the politics you cant fight the trucking companies they keep coming up with more ways to charge for additional pick-ups keeping the commissioners in there pockets. This is not rocket.... More