San Francisco's Curbside Composting Program

You know all the jokes about San Francisco being "crunchy" and full of hippies? Well, this tidbit won't help squelch those rumors; we have a curbside composting program as part of our movement to green the city. San Francisco has mandated that by 2010, 75 percent of its garbage must be recycled or composted.

To help things along, the City started a curbside composting program and gave every customer with trash collecting services a green bin for all food scraps and yard trimmings. The compost is taken to Jepson Prairie Organics, a compost facility that turns the table scraps of San Franciscans into rich, black compost that is then given to farmers and wine growers in Northern California.

I have a small green food scraps bin that I keep in the kitchen and whenever I'm chopping vegetables, trimming rinds off cheese, or scraping bits of food off plates. It's become almost second nature for me to have it at my feet when I am cooking. It doesn't smell bad at all; we don't ever notice it. We line it with BioBag biodegradable compost bin liners, and it all goes out with the regular trash and recycling once a week. What could be easier?

Americans have been getting more concerned about eating healthier and more responsibly; we've been moving towards buying local and organic foods. Let's complete the cycle by reducing our waste and giving it back to the Earth so it can bring life to new food.

This is by Kathryn, who is up for one of our new writer positions. Welcome Kathryn!

(Images via http://www.composters.com)

Originally posted at The Kitchn

Comments (8)

I was hesitant at first to begin saving my food scraps for composting because I thought it would smell more than if I put it in the regular trash. But I can have a bag full of food scraps in the kitchen for a week and it rarely smells. It really is worth it.

Pardon the pun, but I am green with envy! One of my friends lives in SF, so I heard about this program from her. I compost at my home (in DC), but I would much prefer to have a citywide composting program.

Actually Eric in DC, it's better to compost at your house. While I am glad my city has a composting program, I question how sustainable having big diesel trucks hauling it away truly is.

I imagine what Erica wants out of a citywide program is that then EVERYONE would have to do it.

I'm not sure, but I think in Seattle, 75% of the waste already is recycled/composted/mulched/etc.

SO jealous. I think my municipality (a Montreal suburb) is test-driving such a program, but who knows when it will come to the apartments in the area.

For anyone worried about the smell of compost in the kitchen, storing it in the freezer until you're ready to take it outside is a great option. The scraps never start to rot, so there's no smell at all!

SFGail, I am also on the side of home composters (since I teach workshops on the subject), but the scrap bin is a boon for those without space for their own composting setups. The scrap bin is also perfect for items that aren't practical to put in an outdoor or worm bin, such as meat, dairy, oils, and fats. Got a grease-stained pizza box or a cheese-covered sandwich wrapper? The "green bin" can handle it!

San Francisco has approximately 1 million inhabitants/visitors per day, each generating about 6 pounds of personal trash. 30-40% of this trash is organic. The Sunset Scavenger program, then, could ideally divert close to two and a half million pounds of trash daily away from landfills. (Statistics from San Francisco's Garden for the Environment.)

I live in SF and the compost bin is in the sideyard of my apartment building. We already have gnats in the building, and the smell of the bin outside is making it impossible to keep my bedroom window open. I wonder if this is happening to other people in apartment buildings. It's so awful!