First of all, San Francisco -- for all its well-warranted criticisms -- provides its residents with a top-of-the-line composting service. Unlike Los Angeles, for example, we have a facility that is capable of actually breaking down compostable plastic bags (which you can't do in your backyard pile, by the way -- unless your pile reaches temperatures of 140 degrees for 10 straight days. And it almost certainly doesn't). Fines aside, now that landlords will be compelled to offer green bins, tenants who fail to compost can't make excuses anymore -- it really is very easy to do.
A number of people I've talked to -- registered Democrats all -- showed surprising reticence at the notion of composting in the home (can we blame overbearing hippies for this? Why not?). With an extra can, won't we be creating more waste? Yet this argument seems to be a violation of the law of conservation of matter; rather than creating more waste, you're simply putting the same amount of waste in more places.
That dovetails into the next "argument" against composting -- it smells terrible. Granted, if you're worried about a hand coming down on your shoulder when you slip a bag of rotting eggshells and old coffee grinds into someone else's green recepticle, you'd wait until the odor became unbearable as well. But the fact of the matter is, if rotting organic material wasn't in your composting bin, it'd be in the trash bin -- making the same smell. And when you simply need to walk to your building's green can rather than root about the neighborhood, there'll be no incentive to wait until things get ridiculous.
I'll be waiting -- pen in hand -- to see how San Francisco botches this law. But, in the meantime, there's no need for we the people to follow suit, out of ignorance or spite. When it comes to aiding the environment, this really is just about the least you can do. I think we can manage to do our least. We always do.
Photo | Jim Herd
