Damian Thompson Harris Composition 2 Paper 1

I first saw a municipal composting program when I visited San Francisco in 2005 and was enthralled by the concept. The city department of waste management had developed and implemented the Green Box program where citizens were encouraged to place all compostable material from their homes in a special green container instead of into their trash cans. Having been raised by my grandmother, and thanks to her residual depression-era mentality, I have been interested in the idea of waste reduction and composting processes since my single-digit years. The City of Little Rock initiated a yard waste composting program a few years ago and it is working very well, but what if the idea should expand to mimic the San Francisco model? Most of the material that is sent to landfills is biodegradable but the airtight design of landfills prohibits the naturally occurring decomposition process from taking place. Considering that 36 million tons of compostable food is sent to United States landfills annually, it would seem economically and environmentally sound to divert the compostable component of our landfill mass and convert it to natural soil enrichment. In addition to saving the city money over time, it would reduce the necessity for chemical fertilizers, and would essentially cut the growth of new landfills by half.(E.P.A..)

Looking for a reliable source of independently verifiable statistics on food waste and environmental impact, I choose to visit the website for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The USDA and the EPA in a collaborative investigation reported that Americans throw away 40% of their food. An estimated 36 million tons are generated annually with only 4% diverted from landfills into composting. (E.P.A.) People throw away food everyday. The thought that uneaten food should be buried in a landfill is endlessly frustrating to a composter like myself. Purchasing land for the exclusive use of storing compostable materials is an unnecessary expense for city government. This waste could and should be recycled into a useful product. Collecting and processing compostable material in the form of household and institutional food waste will save the city landfill space and bring in profit. The city will add to their much sought after reserves of beautiful black compost. Adding compost to soil helps maintain soil integrity; by balancing the organic matter in soil, the likelihood of erosion is reduced. This product can either be used by the city or it could be sold back to the populace. The city of Little Rock presently sells yard compost to interested buyers at a reasonable cost and in doing so, makes money and more importantly saves expensive landfill space. This also keeps biodegradable materials from being unnecessarily prevented from re-entering the carbon cycle. Controlled composting also allows for the collection of greenhouse gasses that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. When collected, these gases can be used for the production of electricity. Arkansas as an agriculturally productive state would benefit from the use of compost as a natural soil replenisher instead of the heavily used chemical cocktails that currently nourish our produce. A reduction in nutritional chemical dependency would be an attractive selling point to

the booming market of increasingly health conscious and environmentally aware consumers.

For more details about the San Francisco composting program and the feasibility of implementing a similar program locally, I visited the Zero Waste section of the website of Recology San Francisco. As the official website for the city waste management program it seemed like the best source of statistics and general information. The composting initiative in San Francisco is an attempt to create zero waste, however this does not mean zero trash. It creates awareness by consumers as to what is reusable, recyclable or compostable. Waste is created when these things are thrown out with actual garbage. This attempt is being marketed through public relation campaigns by city management as Recology. Recology encourages you to learn about the materials you may have previously thought of as garbage. Education is key to achieving zero waste. (2.) This seemed like a very credible argument, since I personally work in education and see how responsive my students are when they are made aware of how much personal impact they can have on this problem. To find hard statistics on what can be recycled and how much it cost consumers, I searched the services section of Recology S.F. As the official city waste management page, it seemed like the most direct source. Almost everything typically thrown away is recyclable or compostable and San Francisco waste management has figured out how to eliminate almost all waste through a variety of programs. In addition to trash and recycling bins they supply an additional composting bin for residential compostable materials. (Recology S.F.) They also provide this service for private businesses like grocery stores or public institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons. The city provides a Zero Waste auditing service for businesses that educates them in ways to recycle more and reduce their negative ecological impact . In addition, public awareness campaigns are used to encourage citizens to participate and embrace the composting and recycling programs and reduce the amount of true garbage they create. They were the first to implement anaerobic digestion of source separated food scraps to create electricity in the united states beginning in 2004 which means converting leftovers into electricity. (Recology S.F.) San Francisco was the first to initiate household hazardous waste drop off facilities as well as the first curbside composting pick up in 1996. This has been proven to be a sustainable and cost effective venture for the city and the per household cost is only 37$ per month. These programs would positively benefit the city of Little Rock were we to implement them and would create jobs as well as keep waste cost affordable for Little Rock waste subscribers.

Little Rock currently has a facility and infrastructure in place to compost yard waste and expansion of this system to include compostable household items would be financially feasible. When considering the expense of garbage disposal versus compost collection, the use of city funds would virtually the same. It is not an added expense, but one we already pay for. The destination is the only difference. The same trucks and employees could process this garbage as the amount of actual trash collected would be cut in half. Composting facilities are permanent structures versus the fill and move nature of garbage dumps. The one time expense of the composting facility expansion would be offset by the reduction in unnecessary landfill purchases. The main expenses of city composting would be public service announcements or campaigns to create awareness, and of course new bins. The smell of composting materials might necessitate an increase in compostable pick up but would reduce the need for non compostable pick ups as the volume of trash would be virtually cut in half.

The potential benefits of composting almost half our garbage are numerous. The city can make money from compost sales to private individuals and local farmers while saving money in unnecessary landfill expansion. The logical step towards environmentally responsible waste disposal would have positive long term ecological results. The Arkansas farming community would have ready and available alternatives to chemically treating our crops and potentially expanding their share of the market. To alter our present waste model to mimic that of San

Francisco s would be a cost effective and environmentally beneficial implementation for Little Rock Waste management .

Bibliography 1. Environmental Protection Agency . http://www.epa.gov/waste/conserve/foodwaste/ Web. 9 August 2013. 2. Zero waste in San Francisco Recology San Francisco. http://recologysf.com/index.php/forcommunity/zero Web. 2013.

3. Services in San Francisco. Recology San Francisco. http://recologysf.com/index.php/forcommunity/programs-services Web. 2013.

4. Little Rock Waste Management