Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

photo credit: Sue Richards

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved an experiment by the city’s Bureau of Sanitation to begin a table scrap collection program within select areas of L.A., giving hope not only to the reduction of landfill waste, but also to the minimization of sewage waste and wasted energy caused by the common practice of disposing food scraps into garbage disposal units.

The experiment will begin with the distribution of 2-gallon kitchen pails to about 5,000 households in the areas of Harbor Gateway, Lincoln Heights, and South Los Angeles.  Once these pails are filled with various food leftovers, its contents are to be dumped into the large green bins outside of each home that are currently collected for various yard trimmings.  The food and green waste combined, would then be delivered to a composting center near Bakersfield.  The program will start next month, following the lead of other regions within the state, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

According to a study conducted by the City of Los Angeles in 2002, single-family homes generated over 230,000 tons of food waste, while multi-family homes contributed almost 149,000 tons, adding up to about 380,000 tons of waste that could be turned into compost.  A  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report indicates that yard trimmings and food waste make up 23 percent of U.S. waste stream.  Although there has been surge in yard waste recovery from 1988 to 2000, only 2.6 percent of food waste was composted in 2000, compared to 56.9 percent of yard trimmings that were recovered for composting, indicating a larger need for food waste programs throughout the country.

While there are an assortment of regional composting programs and educational information available to U.S. residents, the reality is that not enough people are used to or comfortable yet with the idea of food recycling as they are with the recycling of cans, bottles and newspapers.  The benefits of composting food and organic waste cannot be ignored though, when you consider the amount of greenhouse gas that is emitted by its decomposition in a landfill or the amount of money that is wasted on disposal fees, hauling costs, fertilizers and pesticides.

For more information on Composting Programs in your region of the country, visit the EPA’s website: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/live.htm

There is also a really cool website, “Composting 101,” that can provide you with tips to create your own composting program in your own back yard (no pun intended!): http://www.composting101.com/

Additional Resources:

Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-scraps13-2008aug13,0,6358339,print.story

City of Los Angeles Solid Waste Planning Background Studies Summary Report:

http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/pdfs/rfp-swirp-appendix-b3.pdf)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/basic.htm

National Resources Defense Council:

http://www.nrdc.org/enterprise/greeningadvisor/wm-composting.asp

Related Entries

1. Compete to Conserve Promotes Global Sustainability With Baseball Fans and the Los Angeles Angels
2. Why Compost?
3. Slow Food Nation Aims for Zero Waste