Why Our Food Waste May Be Our Greatest Asset

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Why Our Food Waste May Be Our Greatest Asset

By Ruben Anderson, The Tyee. Posted July 17, 2008.

Composting is key to reducing waste costs, cutting global warming emissions, and increasing urban food security.




You and I are caring people. And caring people care about composting, which is why many of us bemoan the fact that our civic governments do not collect compost. The well-informed among us may even talk fondly of municipal organic waste collection systems, like those started in San Francisco in 1998 and Toronto in 2004.

But let's play these municipal collection systems out a bit. First the city gives every household a pricey new plastic rolling tote. They buy additional trucks and hire more people. Those trucks chug up every single lane in the city until they are full, then they drive somewhere far away and dump the organic waste. Large machines pile and re-pile the organics for a few months until it breaks down into compost. They do this two to four times each month, 12 months of the year, for the rest of time.

There's an obvious environmental cost, and the cash price is none too pretty, either. Take my hometown of Vancouver as an example. The current cost of garbage collection in the Vancouver area is about $15 per tonne. Metro Vancouver collects 1.5 million tonnes of garbage, of which 180,000 tonnes is organic waste.

So the cost of collecting that organic waste, whether in garbage trucks or compost trucks, is $2.7 million every year, plus inflation, wage increases, and fuel surcharges -- and speaking of fuel surcharges, diesel has increased in price by 65 per cent this year. Analysts from the investment bankers Goldman Sachs predict oil could spike to $200 per barrel by winter of 2008.

Landfill potpourri

Cities are going to have an increasingly difficult time paying to move garbage from place to place. Something will give, and solid waste is usually the last thing to get a budget cut -- people get real cranky when the rats are bigger than the cats. Say goodbye to daycares and libraries. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/91732/

[kestrel91316]

1. Here in Los Angeles we put yard clippings and compostable waste in the

"green bin" for pickup on trash day. It goes to the city's composting facility to be eventually returned to the soil.

In Milwaukee WI where my sister lives, their village does not collect grass clippings. All residents must compost yard clippings in their yard. Leaves DO get picked up, but a smart person would shred them and compost them, too. Along with all vegetable matter discarded from the kitchen.

[stuntcat]

2. nice article

I'll forward it! My family finally got me started composting a few weeks ago, before I was moving from place to place too much.
I'm always careful to use all I can of any foods but I've been surprised how much I have for the bin.