How Much “Extra Work” Does it Take to Compost?
NPR once ran a story about using food waste to generate electricity. A wastewater treatment plant in Brooklyn put giant “digester eggs” to work generating power from sewage sludge, and it’s experimenting with adding other organic waste to the mix—“cardboard packaging, past-prime produce, rotten tomatoes, fats, oils, greases from fryers, past-prime dairy products and loaves of bread.”
Food waste; source, Muu-karhu
If such a program is to make a substantial contribution to New York City’s energy supply, it will require a lot of organic waste. Where will it come from?
The NPR story suggests households may be unwilling—or unable—to make a substantial contribution. According to CUNY Professor Samantha MacBride, “When you're in an apartment building, to separate out food scraps—it requires a lot of dedication and attention… it takes extra work.”
Not more work! That sounds awful!
Most of us spend upwards of eight hours a day at work. When we come home, the last thing we want is even more work. But how much “extra work” does separating food waste from trash entail? No one thinks it’s “work” to remember that we should wash our hands in the sink, not the toilet, or that perishable food goes in the fridge, while canned goods go on the shelf. That’s not work—it’s just the kind of mindless sorting that we do daily. As long as you have a few resources to collect and redistribute the organic waste—such as a stink-free compost pail and a compost pick-up service—the marginal effort is minimal. Any reasonable municipal composting program should make those resources commonplace, with minimal—or no—marginal cost to individuals. The savings to communities that can harness clean energy from their food waste, or even just reduce landfill use, are enormous.
What about the work of composting if you don’t live in an area that’s densely populated enough to support a developed composting infrastructure, such as a municipal or private collecting service? Chances are good that you’ll have the space you need to compost yourself—it doesn’t take much.
Mind you, this does require extra labor, such as turning your composter regularly, or clearing a path to it through the snow in the winter. I suppose I could “save” myself some time by just throwing my food waste in the trash. But then I would lose the benefit of the rich compost for my plants, and I wouldn't have the pleasure of putting every little thing that comes out of my garden, or passes through my kitchen, to good use. I expend a lot of labor preparing my garden in the spring, watering it in the driest days of the summer, and protecting it from deer and other pests all year long. My chickens expend a great deal of energy laying delicious eggs each day. There's no way I'm going to throw even the tiniest bit of egg shell, or the stems and seeds from my produce, into the trash—it’s just wasteful.