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Should Composting Be Mandatory In US Cities?
Hugh Pickens writes "After San Francisco enacted the nation's strictest regulations on composting in 2009, the city has increased the amount of food scraps and plant cuttings it composts to more than 600 tons per day, more than any other city in North America, and recently celebrated the collection one million tons of organic materials. Other cities have been watching as Seattle passed a similar mandate in 2010 diverting about 90,000 tons of organic waste from landfills in the first year and New York City is trying to figure out how to implement this type of program for its 8 million residents. The impact is potentially huge in terms of reducing the load on landfills as a study by San Francisco's Department of Environment shows that more than one third of all waste entering landfills could be composted instead. 'We want to see composting be a standard for everybody,' says Michael Virga, executive director of the U.S. Composting Council. 'Urban, suburban, it doesn't really matter where you are.' Although composting initially costs more than land-filling, over the long-term, the benefits will outweigh the costs. 'We can reduce a large source of landfill-generated greenhouse gases, extend the life of our landfill, and generate a valuable resource for the community in the form of premium soil and mulch,' writes Shanon Boase. 'What's more, this industry generates additional jobs.'"
For all non-negative values of X the answer is:
No
So recycling is mandatory, but people in the US go without healthcare? No offense intended guys and gals in the US, but the priorities of your lawmakers seem a little skewed.
Not a relevant comparison - if you are hiring a licensed waste disposal company, they will either require you to sort the waste and charge you a penalty for failing to do so, or the cost of their doing the sorting will be included in their upfront fee. Final disposal will be carried out as required by local ordinance. You won't notice the difference. If you take the waste to the landfill yourself, you'll be required to sort it out per local regulations and you'll just _wish_ you had sorted it out properly at home.
And no, it's not your right to dispose of your waste as you like; this is a classic tragedy of the commons, arguably precisely the sort of problem humanity developed the concept of government to cope with.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
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For the early replies I am reading, saying it's my trash, I'll do what I want - are you serious?
Everyone has a responsibility toward the social compact.
What really burns me is why environmentalism, basic stewardship and common sense have been co-opted by the left, when if anything, *conserv*atives should be the ones owning this issue. Stewardship over the land - it's in the friggin' Bible.
At the end of the day, isn't preserving the planetary resources in everyone's best interest?
This is the main reason why I am a GDI.
If you want X to be provided as a tax-supported service, as rubbish removal is for residents in much of the USA, then it is completely appropriate for the government to regulate the use of X.
This can be done in a variety of ways, ranging from strict requirements to creating financial incentives (such as where you have to pay for each bag of trash, but not for recycling or composting, which is how it works in my town).
Mandatory? No, people should be doing this because it makes good business sense.
This may be one of those cases where it makes good business sense medium-to-long term, but is a loss in short term (because you have to break up the existing arrangements first). And long-term efficiency is not in favor these days.
Absolutely, make it mandatory. Then when millions of compost heaps go neglected (because, by the way, composting correctly is a process and a lot of work), we'll be buried under rat-infested garbage heaps, spreading disease, stink and illness throughout the nation.
But, really, go ahead and make it mandatory. It'll give the toxic cleanup industry just the shot in the arm it needs.
Neglected compost becomes soil eventually. If proper compost bins are used, rats are not an issue. This article is referring to curb side food scraps collection, where the city collects the scraps and brings them to a large facility. I can promise you that such facilities will turn those scraps into compost quite quickly. They won't be "toxic".
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Silly question... if it is headed to a landfill, isn't it being 'composted' anyway? We are burying it, after all.
You're confusing "out of sight, out of mind" with composting or even proper disposal. Throwing the refuse on the ground and covering it with clay or other earth isn't thought out other than just getting rid of it.
Took a few decades for dumb humans to realize you couldn't just throw those electronics under the dirt and not expect Lead, Mercury, Chromium, PCB/PBB, etc, to show up one day in the well water. Driving through the Desert West, slowing down and taking a short walk off road frequently reveals the extent of communities to just assume putting something over there in the weeds was a good enough way to dispose of it - quite a lot of rubbish in the desert, over 50 years old and still sitting there, it didn't go away - consider Douglas Adams' concept of SEP, these dumping grounds, to the present, seem to radiate a strong SEP Field - though eventually they come back to us in some way.
Planning for disposal, recycling and composting should be part of any municipal plan, where larger cities can take advantage of an economy of scale to reduce initial cost. There's only so much land available for landfill and then what? The San Francisco Bay area has huge mounds of landfill around the South Bay, likely something in each of these will seep into the Bay, water table and food chain in some way. Shouldn't be doing these kinds of dumps anymore, but they still do.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
But what if you reframe the question as "Should X be a condition for Y service?" then it gets harder to answer, and also much more interesting to think about.
"Should composting be mandatory?" Absolutely not.
"Should composting be a required condition for using municipal garbage service?" Maybe. And that's what the real discussion should be about.
A lot of seemingly left-vs-right authoritarian-vs-libertarian flamewars could probably be avoided by looking at things in a quid-pro-quo "not just abstract social contract but a tangible you-see-it-in-action every day contract" perspective.
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Not necessarily.
In the first place, labor is required to make all the things needed to produce food, and to produce food, and ship food, and prepare food. Compostable waste is then thrown away (destroyed).
Now, by collecting this waste, composting it, and reusing it as a nutrient source, some of the labor required to make the things to produce food (notably the food and feed fertilizers) is replaced by labor to reprocess waste food. This is simply collecting and stockpiling trash, mainly (and adding water, occasionally turning, very simple stuff). The raw materials that made the original fertilizers are still in this compost--the cost of mining, of processing, of purifying, and all associated labor--and thus a large amount of labor (and raw material) is saved. Further arguments can be made for capture and burning of released hydrocarbons (methane) in the process as a power source.
Thus, soil nutrients being required, and less labor being required to obtain these nutrients, the cost of growing food is reduced. Thus more food can be grown, or other stock for biofuel, and thus more labor can be employed for that purpose, and the industries supported by it (trickle down economics). Thus as well the cost of food itself should be reduced (speculation and complacency affect this, and food costs may not run down in our system; they should, but...), leaving more money in the hands of individuals to support other industries, thus supporting new labor and more jobs (trickle up economics).
Thus we have avoided destruction, and created profit.
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Trouble is that especially in lower-populated areas multiple cities' trash goes into one landfill. Arguably it should be at least a state-level decision.
At this point nobody's saying there should be a federal mandate /anyway/, and with the Republicans doubling down on "LA LA LA YOU'RE NOT A RICH DONOR I CAN'T HEAR YOU" it's not likely to get anywhere in Congress.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
An ancillary benefit is that the compost can be used to support and improve agriculture. It may seem like a big black pile of organic matter, but that's gold to anyone that wants plants to thrive. It makes about as much sense to bury it in landfills as it does to bury nearly-pure aluminum and steel cans.
Absolutely they do have that right for any action that has a negative impact on others. Primarily physical impact (you aren't allowed to punch me in the nose, nor poison me, nor walk into my house and take my stuff, nor forcefully have your way with my daughter, nor have my dog for supper, nor dump your garbage in my front yard), but to some extent, mental (you aren't allowed to threaten to burn my house down).
The nice thing, though, is that people aren't allowed to do this to you either. And I don't care how big you are, there's someone bigger out there who would do these things.
Civilization is a set of laws, most of which boil down to, "Don't steal". Don't steal life, wealth, innocence, health, well being. And when industry and individuals pollute and despoil, you're stealing my health and physical well being.
Check your premises.
The government could just refuse to pay for picking up waste that is compostable unless it is separated.
And we could then vote them out at the next election.
You underestimate how this could be spun in campaign ads: "[Rattle off five neighboring areas] raised taxes in the past few years, but we didn't follow their lead. Instead, our city council cut the waste out of waste disposal spending, saving $x per household and providing high-quality compost to nearby farms."