San Francisco: coffee grounds in the trash will be illegal

[The Nimble Pianist]

You know, if Gavin and the board of supervisors can make this work, then I'll applaud.

I'm not inherently against hyper-recycling. I'm just cynical of my city government.

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

That's odd. I live in San Francisco and the trash gets picked up every week in my neighborhood.

Not the trash. His apartment's compost bin.

Granted, this obviously was prior to a compost law being put into effect. I assume that as of yet it is picked up by some private company, at a very infrequent interval which will likely (hopefully) change once the whole city is held to this same standard and will be incorporated into the standard public works.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Okay, just to clarify because it is SF: Throwing away tissue after cleaning up - still okay?

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

Okay, just to clarify because it is SF: Throwing away tissue after cleaning up - still okay?

I would assume any biowaste (tampons, tissues, q-tips, etc) would go in the black bin.


I think.

 

[MikeSun5]

Sorting your garbage is a big deal in SF? Having more than one trash can is bad over there, I guess.

I'm with the Canadians on this one. I used to live in Germany and we had 4 trash cans (metal/plastic, paper, compost, regular garbage). At the top of the street there was one big glass receptacle for the neighborhood, and we actually had to separate the bottles and throw them out by color. Not once did it ruin my day. I was actually suprised to have only two trash cans when I moved here.

Come on San Fran, what's an extra 90 seconds? Big deal.

 

[Geezer]

Agreed - here in Notlob, we've had three bins for years. It's pretty much the same system that San Franciscans are whining about, with one rather ironic exception: it's actually illegal, technically, to put coffee grounds in the composting bin! There's some obscure EU regulation AIUI that forbids composting of foodstuffs, so our brown bins are for garden waste only. (Garden waste from edible plants is, I think, a bit of a grey area.) Being a rebel at heart, I just compost my own coffee grounds and tealeaves down on the allottment, but I think even that may be illegal.

Dave

You sure about that? Because here in Sweden all foodstuff goes into the compost bin and since we also are in the EU that's kinda wierd, you sure it's not your local politicians doing the old pass the buck because no one really checks if it's a EU rule or no.

 

[Geezer]

You know, I find all this discussion funny in an odd way, in that not once in my life have I lived anywhere that forced recycling of any type. I currently live in Murphy, NC - a beautiful mountain town that is, nevertheless, boring, hickish, and backwater as heck. Most of us have our own composting of one form or another. Most of us burn our yard rubbish, and everything else just goes to the dump. There is no trash pickup where I live, no recycling centers, none of that. I'm not even sure how I would feel if they started mandatory recycling. And if I wanted to do regular recycling right now, I wouldn't even know where to take it, and whether it would be worth the extra gas to do so.

I can see some potential coffee ground problems, though: can cloth and paper, like filters and those horrid coffee teabags, go into the compost, or are you supposed to scrape out the grounds into the compost, then toss the filter or teabag into the trash? What about tea, for that matter? Would this mean every office with a coffee pot would have to keep a compost bin now? I can see a lot of nits to be picked with this ruling.

Organic=compost
Paper while being organic and could be composted is better recycled but coffee filters does not need to be seperated because it will rot nicely in all that moisture.

Where I live we sort:
1 bin for composable
1 bin for burnable
1 bin for Trash
Cardboard and paper goes either into recycling or the burnabable bin
Metal, glass, and plastic is seperated

The compost and Trash is picked up
The rest we have to take ourselves to a recycling station, no biggie they are pretty much everywhere running from smallish containers where you can throw most stuff to fullblown recycling yards where you can get rid of everything.

The compost get taken to a biogas facility and the burnable goes to the city's heating plant.

The pickups are every two weeks.

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

Sorting your garbage is a big deal in SF? Having more than one trash can is bad over there, I guess.

I'm with the Canadians on this one. I used to live in Germany and we had 4 trash cans (metal/plastic, paper, compost, regular garbage). At the top of the street there was one big glass receptacle for the neighborhood, and we actually had to separate the bottles and throw them out by color. Not once did it ruin my day. I was actually suprised to have only two trash cans when I moved here.

Come on San Fran, what's an extra 90 seconds? Big deal.

I don't know how many other San Franciscans are in this thread, but for me this was merely a case of eye-rolling and disdain for the board of supervisors and mayor.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that composting is the least of San Francisco's worries.

On a positive note, I remember reading a month or two ago that our city actually pays other cities on the peninsula to dump trash in their landfills (sorry, can't find the source as of yet). If this is the case, and composting presumably saves on land fill volume, this might turn out to be one of Gavin's positive projects.


We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[666]

There's some obscure EU regulation AIUI that forbids composting of foodstuffs, so our brown bins are for garden waste only.

You sure about that? Because here in Sweden all foodstuff goes into the compost bin and since we also are in the EU that's kinda wierd, you sure it's not your local politicians doing the old pass the buck because no one really checks if it's a EU rule or no.

That's my take on it too, Geezer.

I'm in the south of England and we are encouraged to put all waste foodstuff - raw or cooked - in with the (green in our area) composting bin. Our local authority distributes the resulting compost free to residents.

 

[ravdin]

I don't know how many other San Franciscans are in this thread, but for me this was merely a case of eye-rolling and disdain for the board of supervisors and mayor.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that composting is the least of San Francisco's worries.

That is my take as well. The politicians around here have a way of passing ineffectual ordinances that make their base feel good. As for actual results, it will remain to be seen.

 

[jahbrations]

Not the trash. His apartment's compost bin.

Granted, this obviously was prior to a compost law being put into effect. I assume that as of yet it is picked up by some private company, at a very infrequent interval which will likely (hopefully) change once the whole city is held to this same standard and will be incorporated into the standard public works.

Where I live, they pick up all the trash, recycling and composting on the same day every week. I'd be suprised if it wasn't like that throughout the city.

 

[jahbrations]

I don't know how many other San Franciscans are in this thread, but for me this was merely a case of eye-rolling and disdain for the board of supervisors and mayor.

I find that everyday I am provided with some cause for eye rolling and disdain for the board of supervisors and the mayor. I'm definately with you on that.

At first I had the same reaction to this ordinance as well. But on further reflection, I see that this is just an attempt by the city to divert more tonnage of waste from landfills.

I think it will be almost impossible to be fined. There are always homeless peeps going through the trash, I just can't see how they can prove you put the wrong trash in the wrong bins once they hit the curb. Anybody coud be throwing stuff in your bin once it hits the sidewalk.

 

[Denver]

One thing this may do, is put additional pressure on the sewer system, since for people who aren't 100% into the spirit of this new recycling, stuff like coffee grounds, egg shells, and peels, would go down a garbage disposal pretty easy.

 

[LostAngeles]

Hopefully she at least bathes often, because at least SF Gate writer doesn't want her to wear perfume.

I don't wear perfume. It gives me a headache. A migraine headache.

And most men with cologne these days are wearing Eau de Douchebag and are dipping themselves with it like women are with their perfume. I'm with this guy.

 

[Nosi]

We tried that recycle bit at my apartment complex.

The problem is we're on top of a hill and in the middle of a wind tunnel. The little blue recycle bin would usually end up flying down in the head with a crushed tin can.

The land lord, in fear of lawsuits, decided to forgo recycling all together and stuck with the ginormous rubbish bins which merely tip over regularly, spilling their guts and the occasional 'diaper donut' or two.

 

[MikeSun5]

I don't think I'm alone in saying that composting is the least of San Francisco's worries.

Never been to SF, but probably a very good point.

I think it will be almost impossible to be fined.

Yea, this isn't exactly the type of ordinance that can be readily enforced. How would they fine someone? Garbage men are going to be writing tickets now for cheesy burger wrappers in the paper bin.

 

[Holler Hoojer]

I must be the only really cheap person on here. I'd never throw coffee grounds away. They're worth at least a dollar a gallon (and, oh yeah, leave the filter in there too). I could easily use 5 gallons a week if I could get them. Around here, people compete for the coffee house garbage rights.

If you grow your own vegetables (the hell with pc; think of the taste), you can use good, low impact compost or you can use fertilizer made from fossil fuel. That's pretty much a no-brainer.

So, earthworms love coffee grounds. They wallow in it, eat it, and then leave earthworm crap everywhere and that's wonderful for the soil along with the little burrows they live in. You make compost aerobically. Omit the meat and meat byproducts, and keep the pile cooking, and there's little odor or flies.

We had one of those weird storms last night that dumped 4 inches of rain in two hours. Flooded half the county. Clay and sand soils were scoured away any place it was bare, but I have seedling areas, with deep composted soil, that didn't even lose the seedlings. Soaks the water right in.

Maybe I could sneak into SF and steal from folk's garbage? I might even save enough money to go down by the pier and get an Irish Coffee?

 

[portlandatheist]

I'm not getting why people are complaining about this.

So you have to put your compostable waste in a different bin. Big deal.

I compost my coffee grinds, and feed my other kitchen scraps to the chickens and then compost what they reject as well as their droppings and my lawn clippings, but Jesus Christ, this shouldn't be a freaking law! Just because something is a good idea, doesn't mean it should be a freaking law.

 

[Nosi]

As an upstairs apartment dweller, keeping coffee grounds around, even with red wrigglers can present a problem...little knats bred in my worm bin. Ewww! I still am trying to get rid of the gnats!

 

[Agatha]

That's my take on it too, Geezer.

I'm in the south of England and we are encouraged to put all waste foodstuff - raw or cooked - in with the (green in our area) composting bin. Our local authority distributes the resulting compost free to residents.

I'm in the Midlands and our local authority are "thinking" about this. I have my own composter in the garden anyway. But as it stands:

Blue box - glass jars and bottles, batteries, aluminium cans
Salvation Army bag -clothes, shoes, bedding
Blue bag - newspapers, magazines, directories, paper
Green wheely bin - garden waste, cardboard
Black wheely bin - anything else

Everything is collected once a fortnight.

We take plastics to the recycling point at the supermarket which is not really a big deal, I compost all the kitchen waste, and when my children were younger, we used cloth nappies.