Our city has a curbside composting pickup, and they use the resulting product to donate to organizations in the area for their outdoor projects, as well as to our city for healthier park management. I figure they can use my compostables far more than I can (my yard is xeriscaped...no need for compost, really). - Hookuh Tinypants

over-burdened, over-booked, overwhelmed and feckin' exhausted 24/7. it IS on my "To Do" list for when things eventually let up. like tiffany, i do use a mulching mower. - Joe The Sausage

Yeah I don't have a yard- I contribute to the citywide compost. - anna sauce

The funny thing about composting, I noticed after I started in this apartment- my trash stays "unsmelly" longer, meaning I don't have to take it out as often. Which is a more lazy option, to me. - anna sauce

I'm in a 4 plex apartment. - Tofu De la Moore from BuddyFeed

Because people who live in peat houses shouldn't grow compost ;) - Nicholas Paul Gordon from iPhone

I don't have a yard, just some small potted plants on a patio that my fiancee can't seem to keep from getting eating by caterpillars. They, therefore, don't live long enough to need compost. :) Once I have a house I'll definitely set up a compost bin though. - Bryan Zirkel

lazy - The Amber

No garden. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

No yard, no city compost. - Lix

The municipality picks up wet compostable food and other garbage, compostable "yard" waste and grass gets cut and mulched. Compost produced gets put on city gardens and is available for pickup by residents at various municipality sponsored locations. - Brian Sullivan

Alix- what city do you live in? - anna sauce

Greg I know you're in SF, so you qualify for the free green bin. - anna sauce

ive never heard of com, I ffpost. - Geoff Schultz {TF}

wow, we get a kitchen pail too. - anna sauce

Not even really sure what it is, why I'd do it, or if it's allowed in my neighborhood - Rah-PM 2012

http://www.sfrecycling.com/residen... - anna sauce

Also- Greg you know my place, it's tiny. I put compost in a yoghurt container. Haven't smelled it yet. - anna sauce

There is no reason to. Trash goes in the trash. - Jeremy Brooks

why here - docrivs

probably a better explaination here: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/organic... - Michael W. May

Jeremy- and then it's out of mind, eh? - anna sauce

Nothing to gain. Too much trouble. - Jemm

Green bin. Although, we might start keeping coffee grounds for fertilizer for the garden. - Chris Charabaruk

Interesting Jemm- I've heard that one way to get people into greener living is to show it as a gain, not as a loss. - anna sauce

We can get compost for free from the city's composting center, so we put everything in the green container and let them handle it. - DGentry

Anna, I'm in Pinellas County, Florida. - Lix

I don't have anywhere for a bin, but I do pitch the vegetable waste in the wooded strip next to where I live . . . At night. - Amy℠

Matthew- I'm helping my apartment manager with some composting issues. I grew up composting- townhouse in suburbia, parents are hippies, dad grew up on a farm, where, they bury old farm equipment. LOL. Anyways, I had a worm bin in my last apartment (a big drafty Victorian). Now I'm ina small modern place, and just putting it in plastic until I drop it in the green compost bin in the basement. The compost guys pick it up once a week. It's really easy- and whe you contribute to citywide composting, you can composte a lot more than if you do it in your backyard. - anna sauce

Only briefly- college, travelling- did I live without composting. So this question was honestly meant. I am trying to write a flier for my building, and there are only about 3 of us in 150 units that compost. - anna sauce

I haven't yet figured out the best way to do it in the limited space I have. My work has a large composting programme, so I try to bring things there. Our city does as well. I don't have enough of a garden in my apartment to warrant just doing it on my own at this point. - joey

I loved saying at dinner parties "I have worms." lol - anna sauce

Davis- if it's smelly you're doing it wrong. (ah, that could be said about many things.) - anna sauce

yes. - Richard Walker

Since I don't currently have a garden it never occurred to me to want to compost... But even if I did have time to do a garden (I do have a space I could use, just no free time), would it even be possible to compost with the kind of dry, hot weather we have here? Doesn't it require some humidity? - Lindsay

Did for a while. Hated it. Too confusing to figure out what to put in, what not to put in, etc. - Craig Eddy

I go outside to go to work or ride my cycle. I don't want to be seen in the yard, since my husband won't let me hire someone to make it presentable. I let the leaves decompose where they fall; I'm not sure that piling them up to redistribute later is efficient. The mower doesn't leave clumps. - MiniMage, enterRUPPted

Lindsay- I don't garden, I just put kitchen scraps in. A yoghurt container. That's all. I have an old cookie plastic container too. Then dump it in the compost bin in the basement. Voila. Yard != composting. But if you have one, yeah you can compost in all weather. You can put yard trimmings, food scraps, etc. I composted in college, actually, now that I think of it. We had a corner of the yard designated. If you turn once a week and bury the kitchen scraps, you never smell it. - anna sauce

I think it's a good thing to do with kids, too. My dad and I would geek out about the compost, turning it, seeing the weird bugs, checking the heat that comes from the center, and the fun thing (to totally geek out) is to get all the worms in one area. That's kind of a big undertaking, and only necessary if you're giving worms to someone, for fishing, or starting a new heap somewhere. - anna sauce

Minimage- I'm not necessarily talking about leaves, but sure, you can start to compost those if you are interested. The food scraps is my biggest thing, and the most contributing to citywide compost heaps. In my city we have a green trash can basically that contributes to city composting. It's actually less owrk than recycling to me. I have to break down boxes and I generate a lot more recycling than compost. Food scraps- you basically bury in the middle of your leaf pile and then go out there with a pitchfork once a week and turn it (shovel stuff around). There are some very nice compost bins and turners- but sounds like you're not into yard work which I completely understand. - anna sauce

My brother in law has the uber of all composts- the previous homeowner grew tomatoes for restaurants, so the yard is about 3x the width of the house. He gets these amazing squirming masses of worms there. It's really cute to go out with my nephew and he "shows me the compost" a point of pride. LOL. My simple yoghurt container-to-citywide-bin really, really pales in comparison. - anna sauce

Anyways, SF is shooting for 100% composting (all table scraps go to citywide compost) in 2010 (dream on!) and it's a hot topic here. - anna sauce

I don't think I've seen an earthworm in almost a decade since I moved to Phoenix... I still think it might be too hot and dry... hmm. - Lindsay

David- good question. By separating out the decayable from the non-decayable, you're speeding up the usage. So if you send it to landfill, it's not going to be usable for a while. Yes it will decay, but not at a fast rate since it's with polymers. That pollutes it, in a sense, from easy usage. In a compost heap, the city provides- for free- usage by neighborhing farms, inner city farms, community gardens, etc. - anna sauce

More eloquently w/ more facts, here: http://sustainablog.org/2008... - anna sauce

J. Deakins- I know the level of trash I have now is insanely low. I think I drop mine off each month. A small white bag. By recycling, composting, the "trash" is basically really thin polymers. I also don't use paper towels, but that's another thread altogether. - anna sauce

David- the 2 major reasons, to separate compost from landfill, seems to be 1) reducing methane emissions from compost by oxygenating, which compost piles do (and preventing anaerobic decomposition) and 2) making it reusable more quickly- no need to separate organic from unorganic (as in carbon-based, not organicly farmed) to reuse in farms, as fertilizer, etc. This is both for the individual in the backyard (the greenest option) and for the citywide programs. - anna sauce

To me, the benefits of citywide: it's the lazy option (someone else is maintaining it) and you can put a lot more in it, "anything that has ever lived" is the credo. (inspiration for a murder mystery?) the benefits of home-composting, more interesting, more work, and more green (as in, no fossil fuel/pollution used to transport compost each week) - anna sauce

Don't know what compost is or why one does it. I blame ignorance. - Just Katie

Katie! And you live in CA! Shame upon thee. There was this weird faux bodice ripper I remember reading as a kid- and not understanding- about love in the compost heap. I wonder if I could find it on the interwebs. - anna sauce

Hahahah! Love in the compost heap. I honestly don't know what one is so I guess I'll Google it. - Just Katie

well, it's usually a place where you let natural matter decay, then use it to mulch or fertilize your yard, but in the city it's just separating your food from your other trash and putting it in a separate bin. - anna sauce

We talked about composting, but we'd just end up with a can full of rot that would attract rats. - Nine

The dogs get the scraps. They love 'em. After that, they poop in the yard, so I guess we curpost. - MiniMage, enterRUPPted

I inherited a trash can full of compost from my MIL's house, used it to fill my own potted plants in my cement backyard, and added my clippings back to the can for years. It constantly stays at the same level. Now I've given up on planters and I have a large trash can full of amazing dirt I can't get rid of! I neverever put food waste in there - turns the yard into a rat cafeteria. If you have a real garden it's amazing stuff. - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

So revisiting this thread to write a blog post (which I'll post on FF and here) and wanted to add.. friends growing up had a compost toilet! - anna sauce

Even better than composting toilets is the humanure method, IMO. However, getting people to get over their fears and distaste for that is a real challenge. I would have liked to have implemented it here. It saves on water, too. Using purified water to flush waste is one of modern man's great stupidities. - Spidra Webster

Spidra- there are some cities that use grey water to flush. very wise. - anna sauce

OK analysis of results: http://www.banane.com - anna sauce

The problem is we don't have enough space for trash. So by removing part of it, and making it re-usable, we're helping out. - anna sauce

My understanding is that you can also grade compost, so lower-grade compost (from sources that aren't as good as others) can be cheaper, or used for lower purposes, etc. than the higher grade stuff. I believe compost is still a desireable commodity in all its forms. - anna sauce

See, we do put our food trash in one place and everything else in another... paper and plastic gets recycled. The food stuff goes in the inside trash can and gets picked up by the trash men once a week. It's not really composting. It's just trash. There's no requirement to separate like this, and we're about the only people on our block that recycle at all. The food trash has to be kept inside until the morning the trash men come. - Nine

when i lived in a home with a yard and a couple of gardens i did compost. it was great. the veggies and flowers and plants turned out beautiful and tasty (well, the flowers weren't tasty). there was a big plastic compost bin out back that my wife and i used. i think that reusing garbage makes perfect sense, and what we put into the compost will make perfect compost, especially when you find some good stuff to put in there. it's better than wasting it in a landfill or running it in the garbage disposal and having it go through the wastewater treatment plant, using all that energy. - docrivs

Well, color me green with surprise, they're rolling it out in my building this weekend. - Richard Walker