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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

City Hall Another Day in Portland, Another Hot City Council Debate Over Compost

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:44 AM

Yes, it's time for the weekly conversation in Portland over proper composting techniques. Only this time the debate is happening in City Council. The city commissioners are weighing a new plan that will let people dump their food scraps in the yard waste bin rather than the regular trash can.

If the plan passes, right around Halloween a brown compost bucket will show up on your porch. You'll be able to put any and all food in it, then dump said food into the big yard waste bin.

This seems like it would be a simple switch, yet it's slated to cost $1.15 million and require hiring seven temporary staffers. It also changes regular, non-compost trash pickup to every other week, because running all three services (trash, recycling, socialist food scrap relocation program) every week would add up to $8 to our monthly bills. The 20 percent of people who are the biggest trash tossers will see their rates increase anyway under the new plan, even with the service switch. City council is hearing the plan today and will vote next week.

A nice touch: The sample compost bin being modeled in city council is lined with with a page of the Oregonian. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

There are clear environmental benefits to the plan: Industrial compost release less greenhouse gasses than regular landfills plus the compost site is closer than our current landfill, so there's less pollution involved in hauling.

But do we really need seven staffers for the first months of the compost rollout on hand to explain to people that they can now put any food into the compost bin?

Bones! Cheese! Meat! Kale! New York Times-lauded novelty pie slices! It can all go in!

To explain the plan, the Bus Project's Scott Duncombe and I put together this website (for free!) in one night: PortlandCompostRules.org.

You're welcome.

 

Comments (10) RSS

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1
This is a truly great program that we should completely embrace...once our budget improves and we can afford $1.15 million. Until then, this is the equivalent of losing your job and adding some premium cable channels on the same day.
Posted by Dave J. on August 10, 2011 at 11:19 AM · Report
2
Yes, you will 'be able' to pay more - for LESS service - as the city 'let's' you have NO SAY in the process.

Obsessed with controlling other peoples' lives.

Rats multiply
Posted by D on August 10, 2011 at 11:30 AM · Report
3
- How much fuel is being used to pick up these bins?

- How much would the city save if it simply encouraged citizens to not use so much crap in the first place (i.e. the REDUCE part of reduce/reuse/recycle?) Plastic bags suck, but they are a comparable needle in a haystack of ACTUAL trash that takes up significant space in our landfills.

- Why are we still buying individually wrapped items at grocery stores? Why not enforce bulk/unpackaged purchases for all foodstuffs, and people must bring their own recyclable containers?

- Why do we have garbage trucks stop at hundreds of thousands of individual locations to pick up trash/recycling when all those locations should just be dropping their trash/recycling off at designated "neighborhood depots" that reduce the need for so much stopping/starting 4+ ton vehicles?
Posted by ∞ on August 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM · Report
4
We've been composting at our office, and I'm excited to be able to compost the same broad array of stuff at home. Thanks for the website, Scott & Sarah.

As a sidenote, I wish my garbage company would accept credit cards. They are kind of lame. But I guess they will hopefully accept rotten meat. Ha!
Posted by catbot on August 10, 2011 at 12:52 PM · Report
5
will the compost be available to city residents? What are they planning to do with the finished product?
Posted by not Mel Gibson on August 10, 2011 at 4:59 PM · Report
6
They're going to make $ off of it
Posted by D on August 10, 2011 at 5:23 PM · Report
7
Great. I gotta pay for what I do already.

Sarah, maybe I'm a little thick here (friends would say alot, OK) but I don't see how this really benefits the eniviroment, with the small exception of hauling to a closer location. I mean, Methane will be produced in one place or the other anyway, right?
Am I missing something here?
Posted by frankieb on August 10, 2011 at 7:08 PM · Report
8
Compost plan is carbon crime.

The trash goes on trains from a transfer station. One ton mile on a train produces 1/20 of the carbon from a ton mile on a truck. The new compost facility everything has to be trucked.

The new compost facility does not have methane handling.

Where do I put the dead rats I already find each week along with the used diapers and dog shit I find left my front lawn.

Bubonic plague is already in Oregon I would rather see the money spent on vector control instead of vector enhancement.

My worms already do a great job composting meat and food will they force me to use the green can.

I just used your web site and it said I could compost Sarah Mirk.
Posted by Rosy on August 11, 2011 at 12:30 AM · Report
9
Composting facilities operate in aerobic environments and thus shouldn't require methane capture because they shouldn't be producing much of it. I don't know what the facilities will look like, exactly, but in theory it shouldn't be an issue.

The transportation argument is potentially legitimate, but highly dependent on a lot of factors that you don't appear to have taken into consideration; distance of travel, GHG savings due to composting, landfill space savings, space savings for homeowners, not to mention compost production and the long-term reduction of all the emissions embedded in commercially produced fertilizers.
Posted by zaccuardi on August 12, 2011 at 12:27 PM · Report
10
Once again proving that the best local paper is the New York Times.
Posted by Andy Mesa on August 13, 2011 at 5:44 PM · Report

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