Our town tried a big recycling push versus a compost pickup program. The compost cut landfill waste by 40% in six months.

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2 Comments

Makes total sense. Food scraps and yard waste are heavy and take up a ton of space. Recycling paper and plastic is good, but a lot of that stuff is already light and flat. The real win is pulling the wet, rotting stuff out of the trash. My building started a compost bin and our normal trash bags went from three a week to maybe one. That's all just food and coffee grounds that used to stink up the chute.

sean_robinson27d ago

Maybe, but the real weight comes from all the packaging. A single glass jar or soda can is heavier than a week's worth of coffee grounds. Compost helps, but it's not the whole story on cutting down trash weight.