Blogging the SF Chronicle... There's Trash In the Compost!

2% doesn't sound like much, but when you're talking about compost, it turns out that's way, way too much, according to Deborah Rich's article in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Too bad 2% is also the legal standard.

We're lucky here in the Bay Area: in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, food scraps are collected along with yard waste. The problem is, as Rich writes, "'It's broken, it's in my yard, must be yard waste,'" seems sometimes to be the attitude." But rusty bicycles and watering cans are easy to pick out; it's the plastic that's a problem.

US standards say that compost can contain up to 2% plastic by area, but, according to an expert quoted in the article, "'two percent plastic in compost is so much plastic that if you spread the compost out on the ground, you would see plastic everywhere.'"

The problem seems to be widespread confusion about what to put in which bin; we are just too used to tossing things out without thinking, as we blogged about yesterday. For proof of that, check out this chart, that ran with the article. Something as simple as getting rid of an object you don't want turns into a multi-step problem... and what's "junk plastic," anyway?

all images and diagram via SF Chronicle

Comments (6)

It's also important to remember that standards are different in different communities (and those are different from DIY backyard composting, which differs depending on the method).

For instance, in NYC, ONLY food scraps and vegetable waste are allowed. Even meat, dairy products, and vegetable scraps with meat-based oils or dairy (a cream sauce, for instance) are forbidden.

I wish my Bay Area Peninsula City would collect food scraps. It's ok to put vegetable scraps in our "yard waste" but that's about it.

You can't recycle plastic grocery bags in SF? Weird. In Seattle you have to stuff them all into one so they don't get caught in the sorter, but they can still be recycled.

In my neighborhood, the problem seems to be that when you put your yard waste can at the street, people mistake them as trash cans and throw their empty 42 oz. gas station cups and cigarette boxes in them...then your can is still sitting at the curb, full, when you return from work b/c the tippers wouldn't dump them. Le sigh.

plastic trash bags can be recycled in sf. you just have to bring them back into the supermarket. most of the bigger stores have the bins right by the entry. or better yet, skip the plastic bags altogether, use paper or bring your cloth bags with you when you shop.

delgano's/IGA/Cala no longer has a plastic bag recycling bin. bad on them. safeway does. does anyone know if the smaller plastic produce bags qualify for recycling in the same bins?