Composting in Marin and Beyond
Overview
Composting is an important practice that everyone should try and enact in their own lives. While there are a few restrictions in Marin County, CA as to what can be placed in these bins, normally it is simple to do your part and make the world a cleaner place. Many people compost at home in the county, but this practice should be used in a more widespread setting, especially at school or work. At Marin’s Terra Linda High School, students are hesitant to do the right thing and compost, even with the tri-sort cans the school has bolted down outside. This is a major loss of an opportunity, since the majority of the student body participates in the free lunch program, and normally has food waste that they could easily compost.
This has a major impact on the community, since food scraps in the compost are a major factor in the creation of methane, a potent gas that is 28-34 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. People need to complete the simple task of sorting their food waste correctly in order to help our planet recover from the damage our society has played a major part in for decades at this point.
Ways You Can Help
As said above, composting is an easy way to improve the quality of the environment and something that can be easily executed in everyone’s daily lives. Aside from composting at home, school, or work, one of the ways a reader could make a difference is by campaigning for the practice of composting to their community.
At TL, the high school mentioned above, the MarinSEL program has a facet that campaigns for environmental issues to the community. Food waste diversion is one of those topics. Some of their ideas include:
a) an art contest at school for artwork on their tri-sort bins
b) short educational (bilingual) videos to share with the district
c) field trips to schools in the area to talk about the importance of composting
Inspiration can definitely be taken from these students, and solutions similar to these can be used in different places around Marin and even more widespread audiences. Composting is an important issue that everyone should be involved in, whether it is simply in a home setting, at school or work, or broadcasting the issue in person and digitally. More people should take action to make a change in the way the county goes about composting, and that includes the reader of this post.
Compost Bins to Reduce Landfill Waste
This Spring, the Painted Bins project plans to place eight compost bins in Corte Madera parks decorated with 16 of the art pieces created by the school kids. The 16 pieces of art were chosen by an independent jury out of 60 pieces created by the kids. At the moment, most parks in Corte Madera don’t have compost bins so adding them will greatly reduce the amount of food scraps ending up in landfill. The art on the side of the bins should attract people and hopefully communicate the importance of proper disposal of food waste.
The Future is Bright
Although sometimes the future can look somber for the future of composting, all hope is not lost. There are many ways people can help, as mentioned previously, and other countries in the world have come up with plans to minimize their food waste. Three countries leading the way are France, Norway, and Denmark.
In 2016, France banned food waste in grocery stores, mandating that any food not sold had to be donated instead of thrown into the landfill. Currently, store managers caught violating this law face major fees, which has dramatically decreased the amount of food waste in the country. Additionally, France gives funds to promote sustainable restoration and farming around the planet.
Norway is another country that targets grocery stores in their efforts to mitigate food waste. This country focuses on educating the public about “best before” dates and the misinformation regarding them. Grocery stores there currently have discounts for food with these labels and customers often take advantage of these sales. Also, Norway has a grocery store dedicated to selling food nearing/past its “best before” date.
The third and final country on this list (though there are many more not listed) is Denmark. There, a variety of nonprofit organizations dedicated to food waste diversion are located. The country has the highest number of food waste initiatives in Europe, and this contributes to the fact that Denmark reduced their food waste by 25% in only five years.
To summarize the ideas stated above, composting is a very important practice in today’s society, and communities should work hard to mitigate food waste in their areas by sorting their food waste correctly and convincing others to do the same.
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Simone Dayton, Freshman
Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, CA - Class of 2026
Learn more about the Painted Bin solution Click here.
