Did you know there are now more than 90 U.S. cities with curbside composting programs? San Francisco was the first in 1996, setting a precedent for others to follow, including Boulder, Seattle and my fair city of Portland!
Each city has a slightly different approach to composting, ranging from optional to mandatory participation. After running a pilot program, Portland initiated its official curbside
composting rules on October 31st, 2011.
All single family homes and complexes with four units or less were automatically signed up. We all received these little kitchen pails to collect food waste, and these are then dumped into the yard debris bin outside. (Yes, Portland has separate bins for trash, mixed recycling, glass recycling, and yard debris/compost.)
As excited as I am about this program, I’m not sure how successful mandatory participation is turning out to be. The city reduced trash pick up from once a week to once every other week. I believe the purpose was to force participants to be vigilant with our recycling and composting.
As it turns out, families with more than one child in disposable diapers and a smaller (cheaper) garbage bin simply cannot wait two weeks for their trash pick up. It costs $7 extra dollars a month to switch from the 32-gallon to the 60-gallon garbage bin.
As a result, there has been a 50% increase of garbage in recycling bins. The diapers that make up a large part of that percentage are a major health hazard for workers at the recycling facility.
Portland also estimates that it costs about $1 million to set up a composting program, and says most of that money is spent on educating citizens about how it works. Clearly, more work needs to be done in that department.
Even though there are some major issues that have yet to be sussed out, I’m extremely proud that more local governments are willing to take on the dirty work of figuring out curbside composting.
Does your city have recycling and yard debris pick-up? If so, can you imagine adding a curbside composting program?
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Comments (8)
There is a horrible refuse program in my city where all the customers are not happy due to politics. Anyway, we now only have regular trash and yard waste bins. We used to have recycling bins for mixed recyclables (aluminum, glass and plastic) and a separate bin for newspaper but they have since done away with them. I am considering cleaning up my yard and growing some veggies and fruits...probably be best if I found a inexpensive solution for composting because I feel my yard deserves the benefits more than the city. In my hometown, f you need bigger and/or more trash bins, the fee for the extras are nominal, it the first bin that costs us the most money. Either way, if I had children in diapers, I would most definitely not want to wait 2 weeks for my garbage to be hauled away. In the summer the bins get pretty foul within a week without the diapers. I feel this is only causing other unnecessary issues. There be crazy amounts of flies, and the person having to push the bin from the backyard to the curb would probably vomit all over the place due to the smell. I like the concept of composting to reduce the amount of waste, but I wouldn't want it to be mandatory.
I think the cities did not think this through. Yes composting is environmentally friendly, however not everybody wants their yards to smell. In my city we have separate trash, recycle, and yard bins. In my neighborhood the trash gets collected every Friday which is convenient. I also do composting into my garden's soil every week. I like the fact the nutrients are going back into the earth. It's the greenest way to recycle in my view.
I agree with the above poster; composting should be optional not required for the residents.
@babybug329@xanga - It definitely isn't feasible for a city to tackle curbside composting if there is not a good recycling program already in place.
However, there are some great options for you to compost in your yard! Watch this video the Sierra Club put together: http://tinyurl.com/939ugpl
Its true you don't need the fancy shmancy compost system. My grandmom has the cinderblock and chicken-wire system, and I've lived in many houses with a simple wooden box compost. You just need a shovel to aerate the pile!
You have to recycle in England. We have three bins - brown for garden and food waste, blue for recyclables (cans, glass bottles, paper) and black for the rest of it. If you put your waste in the wrong bins, the council won't remove them and you get a fine. Some bins get collected weekly, others fortnightly depending on the area and your council's policy. So, we don't have a choice in the matter - obviously you can put your compost in the garden instead of the bin, but you do have to separate all your rubbish out anyway.
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - Wow! I am always jealous about how much more forward thinking (and practicing) European countries are. Hopefully we can learn to follow your example!
Most of where I live is very rural, so it's more like anything compostable is already fed to the chickens. But, I live in a bigger town, of about 25,000 or so, so single-family houses have separate trash bins for trash, and recycle. Recycle comes less often than trash, but there are places that will give you money for scrap metal, and since I've been visiting my immediate family, we've been collecting scrap metal to recycle almost everyday.
My parents live in a development in a somewhat rural area so my brother bought a compostor for our personal use. I know there is a company in Philly that provides composting buckets and pick up for business and residental. It hasn't yet become available in the area I will be living, but it exists and if it is successful in South Philly, it should make its way to Northeast eventually. Since this is a private instead of public service, it probably will work out better than it is in Portland.
I put all my compost into my garden every week. If everyone did that and wasnt so damn lazy cities wouldnt even have to do this, BUT I wish more cities did it.