Waste Agency Bins Promote Composting
By Denis Cuff, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Feb. 27–Some people call it yucky. Others call it saving the planet from trash.
Yucky or not, curbside collection of household food scraps debuts in Contra Costa County on Wednesday with a six-month test program for houses in Danville.
Residents in Oakland, San Francisco and Dublin — and a small but growing number of other California communities — already are collecting food scraps for compost to reduce trash ending up in landfills
Danville residents will be the guinea pigs for Contra Costa.
If the service is popular, it could be extended to other communities as well.
“The challenge for us is showing that you can avoid or minimize the problems about odors and flies that worry people,” said Bart Carr, composting program coordinator for the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority. “You can have an efficient, convenient and sanitary composting program.”
The waste authority is asking Danville residents to segregate, store and then dump banana peels, coffee grounds and other food wastes into the green carts they currently use for leaves and grass clippings.
Apartments and condo complexes are not part of the program.
After the carts are collected at the curb, a waste company in San Leandro will age the mixed organic waste into garden compost for sale to gardeners.
To minimize the risk of sanitary problems, each Danville house has been provided a 7.5-liter, washable plastic pail with snap-on lid to store the wastes.
The devices lock in smells and lock out pests, Carr said.
He has firsthand experience. For three years, Carr has used the same type of container to store food scraps under his kitchen sink in Lafayette. He then uses backyard bins to turn the waste into compost.
“It does a really effective job of masking odors,” Carr said.
But he acknowledged some people may worry about smells or pests festering after table scraps are transferred from the storage pails into the large green carts that are rolled to the curb.
To minimize this risk, the waste agency suggests consumers cover and blend the food scraps with leaves and grass clippings.
If that’s not good enough, consumers can wrap food scraps in newspapers or paper sacks.
Plastic bags are inappropriate because they don’t readily break down.
Reaction to the program is mixed among Danville residents, who will pay nothing extra to use the service and face no penalties if they don’t.
Kit King said she hasn’t decided whether to participate because she worries about odors and pests.
“It could be a problem,” she said, adding that she is looking into options for lining the food scraps pail.
Waste officials say no liner is necessary because the plastic pail can be cleaned in a dishwasher.
Marianne Jameson, a longtime Danville resident, said she has composted her table scraps for more than 50 years. “I’m not sure what more I could do. Maybe I could put out the bones to be collected.”
Bones are accepted in the composting bins.
The food scrap program could make a dent in reducing trash volume bound for garbage dumps, helping cities and counties meet a state mandate to divert half their waste stream from landfills, said Sharon Maves, the waste authority’s interim director.
Food scraps make up about 9 percent of the waste volume produced in Central Contra Costa County and the San Ramon Valley.
After the six-month trial, the waste authority’s board will survey Danville residents and determine whether the program should be extended to Walnut Creek, Alamo, Blackhawk, Diablo, Lafayette, Orinda and Moraga.
Restaurants and school cafeterias were not included in the trial because of the complications in storing large volumes of food scraps, Carr said.
“The restaurant programs are fairly challenging,” he said. “We want to start with homes first and see how the public reacts.”
Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267 or dcuff@cctimes.com.
COMPOST FACTS
Good to compost: fruit and vegetable peelings, meat and bones, cheese and dairy scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds and tea bags, breads, grains, greasy pizza boxes, food-soiled paper bags and towels.
Not for composting: toilet paper or tissues, diapers, foil, glass, grease, metal, pet waste and litter, plastic containers, Styrofoam.
For information about the composting project, contact Valley Waste management at 925-935-8900, or the waste authority at 925-906-1806 or www.wastediversion.org.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.
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