I would love to compost but I can’t because I rent my house and it takes about a year to get a compost going. I think Austin should start a compost program for all residents. Austin has put together a zero waste plan for creating zero waste by 2040. Right now they are promoting composting at individual residences and like me, I am sure that other people who are leasing or living in apartments do not have the ability to do that. Other cities like San Francisco and Seattle have much more aggressive plans for getting to their zero waste goals.
San Francisco enacted the Universal Recycling and Composting Ordinance which requires residents and businesses to compost their food and yard waste. Each resident now has three bins: one for recyclables, one for trash and one for composting. The compost material gets taken to a city-run compost and then is sold to local food and beverage businesses. No wonder they have such great wine! They are not going to start fining people until 2011 so that they people have some time to get used to it. Their goal for zero waste is 2020. That huge city has a zero waste goal 20 years before Austin!
Seattle has been composting yard material through a private, for-profit company since 1989 and food scraps since 2005! Each resident has the opportunity for curbside pickup composting for only $5.35/month. They also have a plan in the works to offer composting to every single family resident sometime this year – although I can’t find the details around it online.
Zero waste not only helps the government but it can reduce costs. The government can receive revenue from the sale of soil from composting to local farmers much like the revenue acquired through sale of recycled glass and plastic to businesses for making consumer products.
Right now the Austin government has a program that will help residents dispose of yard trimmings and turn it into Dillo dirt. It would be a natural extension to allow for other compost materials to be collected as well. It’s too bad that it was the first program of its kind in the state and one of the oldest in the nation and now we are falling way behind.
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