Here's a great article on how San Francisco is handling their waste --

San Francisco Gets Scrappy [appetiteforlife.msn.com]

I want to do a better job of recycling my leftover food scraps. I do the paper/plastic/glass recycling and have a compost pile. We also have a garbage disposal unit in the kitchen sink. So any produce that's raw I put on the compost.

But I have a problem with getting rid of just plain leftover cooked food. My daughter is vegetarian so one problem is that there are animal bi-products - eggs and dairy. So as far as the compost pile is concerned, I refuse to put anything cooked on there, and I especially wouldn't put any animal products on there because of the bears, mice, deers, whatever animals that might get it and that would be weird. (Actually, I have this thought that if the deer or bear ate animal food they would then crave animal flesh and turn ferocious and may come after us instead of running away) I don't want to put leftover food in the garbage itself because it just feels like it ends up in plastic and can't break down for years in the landfill, but it would break down fast if it was just thrown out on the ground or whatever.

I thought of flushing some food down the toilet, but that's probably not good for the septic tank and it might clog up the pipes. Any ideas on how to get rid of leftover cooked food scraps so it doesn't end up in the landfill?

Who cares if it ended up in a land fill? Cooked rice is still plants. It's gonna break down fairly quickly, right?

That's what I do now - put the food scraps in the regular garbage, which is in a plastic bag, so I feel like it won't get broken down until the plastic bag gets broken down - it's trapped in there. Whereas if the food was in the open air, it would break down very fast, but I don't just want to throw it outside to rot because of the animals, and I don't want to put it in the compost because I feel like compost is only for raw food, not cooked sludge.

Thanks, coco. I just don't feel right about giving animal products to animals around here or even cooked food to them. The toilet I'm worried about clogging up. I looked up what to put in the garbage disposal and you can't put pasta down there, but maybe I'll try putting in some other cooked food if it's soft. Good idea about contacting a community garden - I think there's one around here.

What about paper bags? I mean, even if you have to use more than one, now they sometimes have recycled paper and all. TJ's bags, for instance

In any case, I had bought some plastic lawn bags that supposedly break down in a year or less. And corn starch ones that are compostable. Kid Raw, how about these:[www.iherb.com]

Those bags, so far as I know, will only biodegrade in the sun. At the dump they are buried under each other so they probably don't get a lot of sun.
Paper sounds good though.

I don't like to use paper bags for food because they soak through and make a mess. I have to put my garbage in a plastic bag because otherwise it makes the garbage can nasty inside and when the truck dumps it, it would go all over the street. But I like those garbage bags that break down, banana who, good idea - The last ones I bought off the shelf at the supermarket have a perfumy smell inside and I hate that.

Recycling is a big problem for all the countries now.The amount of trash goes on increasing and the plans of recycling are not sufficient to recycle them.There are cerain companies established only to perform recycling.They produce various stuff like fence,bench,beach access,Sleeper from recycled plastic.

I had started a thread on this myself and got the impression from most of you that you are resigned to plastic. So I basically have chosen to accept this for now. I generate lots of trash! Today is trash day and it surprises me how many lawn bags I can fill. I loved the cornstarch bags which my former health store employer used as customer bags and tried to order them (they are small--the standard size of plastic grocery bags--but strong and compostable). The wholesale price was 1000 for $60 and I was willing to pay that but they won't let me! I might try again because I would feel a lot better about the whole thing if my crap was in one of those bags...

We live in the country right now so composting takes lots out of the garbage. Plus recycling, though it takes us a while to fill a bin so maybe we put those out every 3 weeks or so. And we make a small bag of garbage every week so the trash sometimes goes out every 2 or 3 weeks. I don't even know what we're throwing out, I'll have to do a garbage audit and see what's going into the trash can. I have no idea, we don't shop a lot so... ?

But yes, the actual garbage goes out in plastic. The garb company won't pick it up loose. And those bio-degradable bags do cost a lot, and for something that won't break down without sun exposure? Hardly seems worth it to me if it's going to stay a bag buried in the landfil forever.

KidRaw, you might try building a cage around your compost pile. I made one that was 4 by 4 by 4, with no bottom, and the top of the cage was on hinges. I used 2X4s to frame it, and used aviary/chicken wire to make the sides. When the cage gets full of compost, you lift the cage away and harvest your compost, and start a new pile. Its OK to put cooked foods into your compost, the bacteria will eat the cooked foods and it will return to its original state.

That's what my husband is always saying - that it's fine to put cooked food on the compost, but it just didn't seem right to me. What about vegetarian cooked food - like with eggs and dairy in it? Is the cage to keep away the animals? I feel like the animals will get into it more if there are animal products in the compost. We have bears, deer, mice, snakes, cats, etc. I put my coconut shells on the compost and then they end up all around the place and it seems like they don't break down.

Like Prana said, composting of food scraps is the way to go. I put about 18 inches (it will compress over time with composting) of dry organic matter (hay, brush, straw, etc.) at the bottom of my compost bin to act as a biological sponge to catch any seepage. I layer food scraps with dry matter and always make sure the top is covered with dry organic matter also (hulls, straw, shredded newspaper, etc.) which prevents any odors and therefore keeps animals away. Anything can go into this compost bin, cooked or raw including animal products. My favorite book which covers composting to the extreme with lots of safety studies included is 'The Humanure Handbook' by Joseph Jenkins.

I have also had indoor vermiculture bins just under the kitchen sink; what a wonderful job those guys do.

OK, I'm convinced that it's fine to put all food on the compost pile, but I still feel like the bears are going to get to it and eat the animal products and then have a taste for flesh and then will aggressively come after us to get more yummy flesh food. That's why they say 'don't feed the bears'.


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