You know all the jokes about San Francisco being "crunchy" and full of hippies? Well, this tidbit won't help squelch those rumors; we have a curbside composting program as part of our movement to green the city. San Francisco has mandated that by 2010, 75 percent of its garbage must be recycled or composted.
To help things along, the City started a curbside composting program and gave every customer with trash collecting services a green bin for all food scraps and yard trimmings. The compost is taken to Jepson Prairie Organics, a compost facility that turns the table scraps of San Franciscans into rich, black compost that is then given to farmers and wine growers in Northern California.
I have a small green food scraps bin that I keep in the kitchen and whenever I'm chopping vegetables, trimming rinds off cheese, or scraping bits of food off plates. It's become almost second nature for me to have it at my feet when I am cooking. It doesn't smell bad at all; we don't ever notice it. We line it with BioBag biodegradable compost bin liners, and it all goes out with the regular trash and recycling once a week. What could be easier?
Americans have been getting more concerned about eating healthier and more responsibly; we've been moving towards buying local and organic foods. Let's complete the cycle by reducing our waste and giving it back to the Earth so it can bring life to new food.
This is by Kathryn, who is up for one of our new writer positions. Welcome Kathryn!
(Images via http://www.composters.com)
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
This is great! I have been looking for a small (inexpensive) compost bin to keep in the kitchen. Its better than using those evil plastic bags for trash. Do you know where I can get this one?
It's not crunchy, its setting the wheels of change in motion. My area would never have had those little green bins if someone didn't start it first!
Thank you SF, from beantown.
view shayna's profile
Shayna, I got my BioBags at my locally-owned neighborhood hardware store, but you can find them online (drugstore.com and amazon.com are two big-name online retailers). I highly recommend using them with some sort of ventilated bin, like the BioBag-branded one, because the bags will degrade rather quickly if you put wet scraps in them.
view chickiepoo's profile
Berkeley too! I hope it spreads--I desperately wanted to compost but constantly neglected my backyard bin, and now the city has made it so easy. Yay!
view Katie in Berkeley's profile
It's not crunchy, just a little goopy. A while back, our local food store had a whole display of wines grown with our SF compost. So great to complete the cycle.
The great thing about our composting program is that we create a lot less sewage because we don't grind everything down in the disposal.
view SFGail's profile
Always great to see the government and its people active with saving the environment. Chicago just expanded their recycling bin services.
Cool to see this, but how do you keep the "for compost" bin from stinking up the joint?
view Andre's profile
i absolutely love the idea of composting. the only issue is that i live in a small town that barely recycles, let alone has a composting program. i plan on composting, but won't exactly have a garden, so i suppose i could always give it away, haha!
go san fran and chicago! FINALLY, it's all catching on!
view indiasoup's profile
Curbside composting has been enacted (and made law) in many parts of Canada for years even in remote and rural areas. We even have compost bins in public places like food-courts in some cities. It's a great program and can be no hassle at all. Instead of buying the compost liners you can simply line the inside of the household bin with newspaper which makes clean-up a snap. And if in the hot summer months, the heat makes things decompose a bit too quickly, you can always store the quick-to-rot waste (and a feast for fruit flies) in the freezer until you have a moment to dump it in the outdoor bin. I know this sounds crazy but it really works. I keep a 2L ice cream container in the freezer expressly for that purpose. Works like a charm!
view semblance's profile