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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.'"
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.
well the city is providing the service of trash hauling. they can pretty much choose not to haul away organic matter. You don't have to compost, but they won't pick up that trash (or trash with organic matter unsorted inside of it). You may feel free to contract someone to haul away your unsorted trash. There. your rights are no longer being violated.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
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
I have been backyard composting for a while now. I put vegetable scraps in a small stainless steel bucket under my sink. When the bucket is full, I take it out (every four days or so) and dump it in the compost bin. My area also has curb side food scraps collection, which would be easy enough to use, but I prefer to compost myself, so that I can feed my garden each spring. Besides getting a nice garden, one of the main benefits has been that my garbage is much cleaner. In fact, besides a few bones, most of my garbage consists of unrecycleable plastic bags and containers. When I take my garbage out, it is a plastic bag full of plastic bags.
The main work consists of turning the compost outside every once in a while (which wouldn't be necessary for curb side collection), and in cleaning the compost bucket under the sink, which is easy since it is stainless steel. The garbage bin is less stinky, which is nice, and I don't get the drippy bags of garbage that I used to get when I put food scraps in the regular garbage. In other words, I have found composting to be relatively easy, and I suspect most people would have a similar experience once they got started.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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).
No, a landfill is an anaerobic environment. Organic material in a landfill barely decays at all once it has been covered and sealed.
Or more likely, just refuse to collect garbage with substantial compostable materials.
We have a composing program here and it works fine. As a Canadian, the standard selfish American "fuck that shit" response to this kind of stuff is always humorous. I mean my god.. when you eat a banana, you toss the peel into a different bin. Tiny bit of effort, huge benifits to everyone! American response: "HAWR I PAY TAXES WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO DO THAT SHIT!!"
"And as for healthcare, no one goes without treatment, even if they don't pay for it themselves, like myself and most of us do."
Dead wrong. Nobody goes without urgent care if they show up to an ER. Anything short of that... unless you're (a) very poor, (b) over 65, (c) a veteran, (d) under 18 and poor but not very poor, or (e) have a job which provides health insurance, or (f) married to or the (25 year old) child of someone in category e.
That sounds like everybody, but its far from it. This is just for "body" care -- dentistry and health care coverage gaps in America are massive, often even for the so-called insured. Even if you are in one of those categories, you're not guaranteed care... it all depends on what ails you, who declares it a pre-existing condition, whether or not the best treatment is the lowest cost treatment, whether or not you want a second opinion or a specialist, if you can afford the co-pays for therapeutic treatment or medication which pile up week after week, etc. etc.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Come on, most american can't even dispose of their trash properly, asking them to compost would make their nose bleed.
That's what they said in my city. Then the city implemented an easy system, and most people, and I really mean most of them, now recycle habitually. Don't underestimate people. They might surprise you.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As an American, I'm impressed with your keen understanding that he speaks for all 310,000,000 of us.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Your rights end when you start crapping in my yard.
So, yes.
Industry dumping deadly chemicals, your Hummer, the crap that leads to the algee blooms in the ocean, all of it has a direct impact on me. And thus, yes, I and the rest of the world get to tell you to stop shitting in the nest.
Check your premises.
Ya pain in the ass, but basically they are saying "we will provide this service as long as you obey the rules". Put stuff where it doesn't belong and your service should be stopped. You figure out what to do with your own garbage - you created it after-all, it is your responsibility not the responsibility of the rest of us.
AccountKiller
To quote Buckminster Fuller, "Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value." The fact that you apparently take great pride in your ignorance is not as disturbing as the fact that there are millions of people just like you, people who think it's their right to throw paint and used motor oil into "properly managed landfills." You're deluding yourself and poisoning the rest of us.
When we talk about "mandatory" recycling or composting we are talking about one more bin to throw things in that the trash people will pick up. Is it really such and incredible #$%&ing inconvenience for you to throw plastic bottles into one container and food waste into another? Are you really that incredibly unfathomably unconscionably lazy or are you just too incompetent to properly sort your waste into three different categories or is it just that you are so ridiculously self-centered that you really think having to sort the waste you dump into your local community is some kind of violation of your human rights?
I met people like you at the hobby shop where I used to work when I put out a recycling bin. Some of the teenagers actually refused to throw their cans in the bin claiming I was forcing my hippy environmentalist beliefs on them and it was their right to not have to throw an aluminum can into a separate #$%&ing bin. I don't believe this is about civil rights, it's about an absurd over-inflated sense of entitlement. My stereotype of people who think like you is that you live in a rural community or sprawling suburb. Luckily, people who live in the city understand there are small inconveniences, like throwing food into a separate bin to reduce strains on overflowing landfills, that we accept to make life easier for all of us.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
You've framed the question wrong. How about this one: "Should the rest of us be mandated to take your garbage if you don't sort it properly?" That is your X, therefore by your own logic, the answer is No. You don't want to sort your garbage? Then you figure out what to do with it, it isn't going in the public landfill.
AccountKiller
Well, the problem is that landfills are actually *made* to handle toxic substances, so filling them up with things that don't belong there wastes *lots* of money and time. They usually put landfills in empty rock quarries, so that the waste doesn't leach into the soil and water system. In addition, they are usually treated in such a way as to encourage it *not* to break down, and therefore it is less of a hazard. If you spend all of that landfill area on stuff that *could* be composted away, you are just wasting valuable space.
Engineering and the Ultimate
So road safety regulations are communist? Regulations on sewage disposal are communist? Regulations on what kinds of RF emitting devices you may operate in your backyard are communist?
Well, if preventing individuals from harming the commonality is communist, I urgently need to raise a few red flags.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Technically, Ramen noodles and the flavor pack that goes in it do not really count as cooking multiple things...
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
For all non-negative values of X the answer is:
No
In my perfect libertarian world, whoever gets to the intersection firstest with the mostest guns wins. Stopping or even slowing down would never be mandatory, unless you're one of those bitches driving a Prius.
And shouting "Fire!" in that mythical crowded theatre is okay, but shouting "Firepower!" and following it up with a few rounds into the ceiling is even better.
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.