Composting has never been the most enticing activity for a majority of people.
It can seem a grubby, soggy and all-around dirty process that yields, well, something that looks a lot like dirt. In the past, it’s been relegated to the domain of green-thumbed gardeners and eco-warriors, but as environmental consciousness becomes more de rigueur, composting has hit the mainstream.
While many of the larger municipalities across Canada have implemented civic composting programs, not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Naysayers cite the apparent messiness, lack of space and the inconvenience of composting bins as some of the reasons composting hasn’t caught on. People living in smaller spaces with limited access to a yard or private green space may think that composting is more trouble than it’s worth.
But it remains that individual composting can still yield great environmental returns even if one doesn’t have much personal use for compost. Parks and municipal green space benefit from community composting efforts and the increasing number of opportunities for urban agriculture mean that compost can be put to good use across the city. At the end of the day, composting diverts waste away from the landfill—an action that yields widespread environmental benefits regardless of where in the city the compost ends up.
So the question is, how can more people be persuaded to compost, whether for personal benefit or otherwise? The answer lies in the design and execution of composting programs and of the composting bins themselves. Curbside composting makes it easier to send food scraps and yard waste to a central facility for processing. Programs of this type are possible in most municipalities. In some cities, however, curbside composting is not offered to tenants in condos or apartment buildings because of collection issues around the size of standard composting bins.
For more people to compost, it must be easy, quick and clean, and appropriate to a variety of dwellings. Vancouver, for example, offers worm composters suitable for apartment use at a subsidized cost. City-driven action and further education around the process will increase the number of people composting. Just as recycling wasn’t always automatic in households, composting will become more popular over time with well-designed collection programs and better bins.
Composting is one example of a tool that individuals, communities and cities could be using more as a way to improve the urban environment.
– By Stephanie Shewchuk