A Call for Composting

On an average weekday, many members of Congress and their staffs enjoy a quick lunch in the cafeteria of the Longworth House Office Building. After eating and before leaving to make decisions about the nation's future, they discard their remaining food scraps into large bins labeled "Compost." That food waste is then transported to a composting facility in Maryland, where 60 days later it emerges as rich, dark fertilizer for use in gardens and parks across the region.

But in Washington, Capitol Hill's composting program is the exception rather than the rule. Elsewhere in the city, restaurants, schools and residences send tons of food waste to landfills every day. There, this waste takes up valuable space and produces methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

There is no good excuse for the lack of composting programs in the District and the region. Yes, our legislators set an example by composting their food waste, but shouldn't all of Washington, as the nation's capital, set an example for the rest of the country?

The organic matter that Americans discard daily, including food scraps, yard trimmings and other biodegradable waste, comprises 23 percent of the U.S. waste stream. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, only about 2 percent of our nation's food waste is composted each year; in other words, we unnecessarily send 30 million tons of such waste to landfills annually. While over half of U.S. households have garbage disposal units, food scraps sent through these systems increase the load on sewage treatment plants, use a large amount of water, and do not allow nutrient-rich waste to be used as fertilizer.

With the U.S. population growing rapidly and concern about greenhouse gas emissions rising, it is time for us to take notice of the harm we are causing.

Curbside composting programs are being initiated in cities across the country. San Francisco was the first U.S. city to institute a composting program. Its program is still the largest in the country and provides an excellent model for Washington to emulate. Since 1997, residents and more than 2,000 San Francisco restaurants have joined the city's program, which also provides discounts on restaurants' garbage bills. Each day, the private c ompany Norcal Waste Systems picks up hundreds of tons of organic waste throughout the city and transports it to a composting plant an hour away. The organics are mixed at the facility and monitored for temperature and moisture. By the end of the process, the waste has become compost that can be sold to vineyards across Northern California.

A similar program is feasible here. Washington could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, free up space in its landfills and even generate fertilizer to keep the city's parks and public spaces beautiful. And while creating organic waste facilities is expensive, the long-term benefits, including reduced garbage collection fees, lower taxes because of the conservation of landfill space, and revenue from the sale of compost, show the economic practicality of such a program.

With so many benefits, why have Washington and other urban areas failed to start composting programs? The main reason appears to be the common belief that composting takes too much effort and that Americans do not care enough to make lifestyle changes. But history, in addition to the San Francisco experience, tells us otherwise. Curbside recycling was unheard of in the United States before 1973. Today, recycling is ingrained in our society. In fact, there are more than 8,000 curbside recycling programs in the country. The United States has improved from recycling only 6 percent of its municipal waste in 1960 to one-third of it today. Americans do have the capacity to change. As environmental issues rise higher on the nation's agenda, Washington should, as America's capital city, lead the way toward a more sustainable future.

-- Cooper Lloyd

Washington