The Compostman Always Rings Twice

First it was the homeowners. Then, Seattle restaurants, coffee shops, food courts, cafeterias and other food service businesses. Composting! “Together food and food-soiled paper represent more than 30 percent of the garbagethat Seattle residents dispose,” Seattle Public Utilities will tell you. And by 2014, SPU projects they’ll serve 270,000 households, with 35 percent of residents living in multi-family housing.

Those projections, in part, explain why this September all Seattle apartment and condo dwellers will be required to compost food scraps as well. If your apartment or condo has any kind of landscaping, there is probably already a yard waste cart. But if you don’t see a food waste cart, you might want to put a bug in your landlord’s ear to visit this page to sign up. The deadline for the ordinance is September 2011. After that, you’re a non-composting outlaw.

If the landlord or apartment manager or busybody signs up for training as a Friend of Recycling and Composting (FORC) steward, whoever pays the utility bill gets a one-time $100 credit. Also, SPU is providing a limited amount of in-kitchen compost buckets and baskets for FORC stewards to dole out to their neighbors. (They also have some leftover compostable bags, but when they run out, they’re out for good.)

Otherwise, there’s not all that much carrot to this proposal. It’s up to renters and condo residents to figure out how they want to store the compost and deliver it to the food waste cart. You’re told: “Options include using a reusable container with a lid, approved compostable bags, and wrapping the food scraps in newspaper or a paper bag. No plastic bags or containers are allowed.”

The approved compostable bags will run you about $0.10 to $0.15 apiece. But whether you use them or not is your business, just so long as the food waste ends up in the cart.

And of course there’s one more sorting process to add to recycling:

What goes in my food and yard waste cart? All food scraps including fruit, vegetables, yard trimmings, meat, dairy, and fish as well as food-soiled waste like pizza boxes, paper napkins and kitchen paper towels are accepted.

SPU says that over 400 properties are already participating in the food waste compost program, with thousands using yard waste carts to compost. You can learn more about composting procedures and techniques from Seattle Tilth. They will also teach you how to raise chickens, and if you can swing that, your compost problems are almost solved right there. Chickens and food scraps go together like peanut butter and chocolate, if Reese’s also laid eggs.