In 2010, one of my goals was to begin composting our kitchen scraps. The city already picks up our yard waste and composts that, but I cook a lot, and all that waste has been really bothering me. In working through all the LEED certification documentation and verification requirements and getting solar panels on our home last year, alas, I did not start composting in 2010. And now, it’s April 2011 and we still have not started!
The problems are many. I feel stuck. Linden Hills, a nearby neighborhood, has been piloting a compost program where those residents’ kitchen scraps are picked up at the curbside. Some friends of mine, who are much greener than I, stopped their own composting immediately upon learning that it would be picked up and used for energy. That tells you something. If they don’t want to do it, it must be a real pain.
Then there’s the whole worm composting question. It sounds like a fun thing, but I’m not sure I’m ready for more pets. My goal this year is to at least learn enough about kitchen scrap composting to make a more educated decision.
Seattle now picks up all food scraps as part of the yard waste collection. It is great! Very convenient and makes it really easy to just have a little counter collection jar. Encourage Mpls to do that!
My partner and I live in East Harriet and have been composting food wastes for a few years. We have two simple coated metal bins like these on one side of our house:
http://www.amazon.com/Bosmere-K765-Wire-Compost-Bin/dp/B0017XY3HK
We dump scraps and yard waste into one bin until it is full and then use the other one. The “idle” one decomposes over a summer with a little bit of turning and we have great compost for our gardens in the fall.
It is more work than having someone else haul it away and the types of things that can be composed are more limited. Though, composting on one’s property requires less energy (no hauling by trucks or powered tools at an industrial composting site) and provides wonderful compost for oneself and one’s neighbors. We do have it a little bit easier as we live on a little more than a tenth of an acre so we don’t generate much yard waste.
Allison, from what I have read the City of Minneapolis would like to expand the pilot program but they have yet to find industrial composting site that is cost effective because the currently known ones are all outside the city (over ten miles if I remember correctly) so the hauling cost is seen as prohibitive.