"Trashing" Food Composting

GASP! So long food-waste bucket.  SNIFF…..You have served me well but now it is time to throw you to the rubbish heap!

Food Scraps Bucket

I admit I was a little skeptical back in 2003 when the City of Kirkland, WA and their contractor Waste Management pioneered this food waste recycling practice – the smell, the yuck, the hassle, and did I mention the smell.  But hey, growing up in rural New Jersey we did this all the time using empty waxed milk cartons.  With an incentive of scaling trash collection fees based on the size of your garbage can, the city encouraged use of the food scraps recycling and as a result saved land fill costs, water treatment costs and educated the community along the way.  Notably those bulky greasy pizza boxes, and other cardboard food containers (without wax coatings) that could not go in paper recycling, could find a home in your grey yard waste bin rather than the land fill.  Folks wondered if the cute little food scrap buckets would be used, or would people continue putting those coffee grounds down the disposal.  Even the City wondered how successful the program would be.

Fast forward to 2010. The program has been very successfule but that little food scrap bucket has endured being dropped in the sink, left on the porch a couple times, and endured countless trips between the kitchen and yard waste bin.  Finally after 6 +years, the lid no longer locks and falls off all the time.  While I hate to toss our trusty (plastic) bucket (in the garbage?), it is becoming a nuisance.  When I questioned City staff, those great folks at the City of Kirkland welcomed me to come get another (free) bucket.  – HMMM wonder if I can just get a new lid?