A lot of people want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fight climate change, and reduce their own carbon footprint. There are plenty of ways to do this — some have significant upfront costs (solar, electric vehicle) others require a significant effort (bike to work? carpool?).
But there is a very simple, inexpensive (less than a dollar a day) step you can take, and the only effort involves opening a bucket and tossing stuff in. Really - I'm not kidding. That's the power of curbside composting.
For $20 a month, you can divert all of your food waste (not just apple cores and banana peels) from the waste stream to the compost stream. Our current customers are on pace to reduce their household carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by one ton annually. Food waste that rots and decomposes anaerobically in landfills is a major source of methane gas - one of the most potent greenhouse gas emissions.
Diverting your food waste (and pet hair, paper towels, old cotton shirts and more) not only reduces those emissions, the compost it produces helps retain moisture in soils, helps grow more plants, vegetables and greenery, and sequester more carbon in the ground.
What does one less ton of carbon dioxide in the air mean, in real terms? It's like taking your car off the road for four months, or not driving about 3,000 miles a year.
If this sounds a bit too good to be true, here's the data behind it all:
The US EPA estimates composting 1 ton of food is the equivalent of not using 392 gallons of gas. Saving a gallon of gas is equivalent to preventing 8.57 kg of carbon dioxide emissions. Our customers each average slightly more than 500 pounds of food waste composted per year, or about 100 gallons of gas saved, which equals 875 kg, or 0.96 tons (rounded to 1 ton) of fewer CO2 emissions per household.
We hope you'll agree this is a great example of "think globally, act locally."
You can sign up for curbside composting here.