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Good luck getting the dysfunctional, incompetent, and corrupt local governments in America to implement that.

floatrock 10y ago
San Francisco sends its (mandatory) curbside compost up to Napa to grow our wine, and having lived through a couple ballot initiatives and largely-self-infliciated absurdly high rents here, I can think of no municipality that is more dysfunctional or incompetent.
- wsinks 10y ago
  I had no idea that we sent it to Napa. I'm guessing we get paid pretty handsomely for it?
vkou 10y ago
My dysfunctional, incompetent, and corrupt local government (In America) has managed to pick up my curbside trash once a week, for years. Over the past year and a half, it's also managed to pick up my curbside compost. It's also managed to provide both electricity, and running water. Most of America isn't some kind of lawless hellscape, filled with wandering ghouls, cursed with a hunger for human flesh (Despite what Randian fiction seems to claim.) Mandatory infrastructure tends to work, for some definition of working. (Now, if only the same could be said about Comcast...)
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >Most of America isn't some kind of lawless hellscape, filled with wandering ghouls, cursed with a hunger for human flesh (Despite what Randian fiction seems to claim.) Mandatory infrastructure tends to work, for some definition of working. (Now, if only the same could be said about Comcast...) About half of it is. Visit the South sometime and you'll see. A lot of places still don't have recycling, much less compost pickup. And as for mandatory infrastructure, the entire United States fails here: internet access is mandatory infrastructure in this day and age, just like running water was considered mandatory by the mid-20th century, and the US's internet infrastructure is pathetic (as you admit about Comcast).
  - vkou 10y ago
    Most of those places in the South don't have recycling precisely because they are too busy complaining about how terrible and inefficient and wasteful their government is, and how taxes and fines harm their freedom to throw whatever they want to in the garbage. To uncharitably generalize a bit. There's that, and the belief that environmentalism is a communist plot, and that aluminum grows on trees. If they wanted compost pickup, there'd be no reason why they couldn't have it. When you've solved curb-side garbage pickup, you've also solved curb-side recycling pickup, and curb-side compost pickup. Comcast is a publicly traded firm.
donarb 10y ago
Seattle does it.
quadrangle 10y ago
The small (<40k residents) American city I live in already has weekly curbside compost/yard-waste pickup.

San Francisco sends its (mandatory) curbside compost up to Napa to grow our wine, and having lived through a couple ballot initiatives and largely-self-infliciated absurdly high rents here, I can think of no municipality that is more dysfunctional or incompetent.

wsinks 10y ago
I had no idea that we sent it to Napa. I'm guessing we get paid pretty handsomely for it?

vkou 10y ago

My dysfunctional, incompetent, and corrupt local government (In America) has managed to pick up my curbside trash once a week, for years. Over the past year and a half, it's also managed to pick up my curbside compost. It's also managed to provide both electricity, and running water. Most of America isn't some kind of lawless hellscape, filled with wandering ghouls, cursed with a hunger for human flesh (Despite what Randian fiction seems to claim.) Mandatory infrastructure tends to work, for some definition of working. (Now, if only the same could be said about Comcast...)

Grishnakh 10y ago
>Most of America isn't some kind of lawless hellscape, filled with wandering ghouls, cursed with a hunger for human flesh (Despite what Randian fiction seems to claim.) Mandatory infrastructure tends to work, for some definition of working. (Now, if only the same could be said about Comcast...) About half of it is. Visit the South sometime and you'll see. A lot of places still don't have recycling, much less compost pickup. And as for mandatory infrastructure, the entire United States fails here: internet access is mandatory infrastructure in this day and age, just like running water was considered mandatory by the mid-20th century, and the US's internet infrastructure is pathetic (as you admit about Comcast).
- vkou 10y ago
  Most of those places in the South don't have recycling precisely because they are too busy complaining about how terrible and inefficient and wasteful their government is, and how taxes and fines harm their freedom to throw whatever they want to in the garbage. To uncharitably generalize a bit. There's that, and the belief that environmentalism is a communist plot, and that aluminum grows on trees. If they wanted compost pickup, there'd be no reason why they couldn't have it. When you've solved curb-side garbage pickup, you've also solved curb-side recycling pickup, and curb-side compost pickup. Comcast is a publicly traded firm.

donarb 10y ago

Seattle does it.

quadrangle 10y ago

The small (<40k residents) American city I live in already has weekly curbside compost/yard-waste pickup.