By the way, while apartments have something of an "amnesty" until 2011,
landlords who don't bother to provide green bins can get fined right
here and now. It'll be interesting to see who who will make history by
being the first person penalized for failing to compost. This is the
sort of thing that could spur a betting pool. Who's in?
Anyhow, for now I come to praise composting, not to bury it. As we've written before, sans the terror of being caught infiltrating someone else's green bin, there's no reason to wait until your kitchen smells like a restaurant back alley to take out the leavings. Compost in a green bin smells no worse than compost rotting among trash. And, finally, for those unwilling to spray off chemicals or set up fly strips to combat "vinegar flies" attracted by rotting organic matter, a carnivorous sundew plant may be just the thing.
If you are an apartment-dweller, by the way, your landlord or property management company ought to have arranged for you to receive your complimentary "kitchen pail" to go along with your green bin. The Department of the Environment is actively seeking tenants to snitch on recalcitrant landlords, and those just getting around to calling up an ordering bins ought to clear out a little time. When we phoned Sunset Scavenger on a lark, our hold time was a cool 13 minutes, 30 seconds.
