My sister Carmen rents out an apartment in Delaware. Her last apartment had many issues because the person sharing the house attached was a hoarder.
This caused cockroaches and other pests to inhabit the place, even though she had exterminators come multiple times to fumigate.
When she moved to her new apartment, she was excited because there wouldn’t be pests and she would be able to have a compost.
She has a small compost pail that allows her to put food scraps inside it to decompose without creating any odors or burying in the yard that she was renting.
http://www.bambeco.com/getdynamicimage.aspx?path=Stainless-Steal-Compost-Pail2656.jpg&w=97&h=97
The landlady found out and told her she was not allowed to do so on her property. She said she thought it was disgusting.
Her previous landlord had let roaches live in the apartment because of irresponsible waste management, and now someone who was being completely responsible and Earth-friendly was told they were disgusting?
I know I’m biased, but it seems like there’s a negative social stigma that comes with being earth friendly- people call you “hipster” for using reusable items when you eat or trying to avoid plastic or compost.
At the same time, there is “greenwashing” that is occurring. We love to love to “Go Green” but we don’t actually want to do it ourselves. Why is that?
The reality is, “Americans generated 36.43 million tons of food waste and sent 34.69 million tons of that to landfills, meaning that only 1.74 million tons, or 4.8% of the total waste, were recovered or recycled.” (according to Quartz, by BASF, a Chemical Company). I don’t want to reiterate, but if 95.2% of our food waste isn’t being disposed of properly, something has gone wrong. Horribly wrong.
Recycling is common- although maybe not as prevalent as it could be compared to European countries (for example, according to whyshouldirecycle.com, “Grading 149 countries and using a scale of 0-100, with 0 being worst and 100 being best, they measured categories of: emission, sulfur output, efforts of the society in conservation, plus purity of water resources. Switzerland topped the overall ranking with 95.5, Sweden and Norway tied with 93.1, Finland took 3rd with 91.4, and the rankings continued on with Costa Rica-90.5, Austria-89.4, New Zealand-88.9, Latvia-88.8, Colombia-87.8 and France with 87.8. Out of the top 20, there were 14 European countries, with the US trailing behind at 39th with a rating of 81.0.”
We’re not the worst, but we’re most certainly the best- but we should want to be! It’s not dirty or gross, definitely not more so than a landfill, and it will help reduce not only the amount of landfill waste produced, but it can also help
Cities are starting to have composting initiatives, as Yale Environment 360 noted, “Many of those programs are still voluntary, and the bulk are in small cities and towns. But larger cities in North America — including San Francisco, Seattle, San Antonio, Toronto, and Portland” are beginning municipal programs.
The thing is, this is the chance of each of us to prove that it’s more than scientists and hipsters that care about the environment- we all do. If we start to push for a better path, and encourage one another to do so, wouldn’t that be better in the long run?
Sources:
http://www.whyshouldirecycle.com/which-country-in-the-world-recycles-the-most/
http://www.bambeco.com/getdynamicimage.aspx?path=Stainless-Steal-Compost-Pail2656.jpg&w=97&h=97
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/recyclings_final_frontier_the_composting_of_food_waste/2678/
http://qz.com/216261/these-maps-show-how-the-world-composts/
http://indykids.org/main/2014/05/composting-around-the-world/
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