I am going this Wednesday to a meeting of a group on sustainability in my town, and would like to learn about other towns who have done this.
It doesn't seem so complicated. A place where people can bring their leaves and add their kitchen wastes.
That is how I make my compost.
Of course there are problems but there must be ways around them.
For example - how would one keep the right proportion?
Animals? (I have in 17 years only once found a mice nest in my heap, but this is a concern people will raise.)
How to keep people from throwing in non-compostables?

Interested to know how other towns have accomplished the goal of producing compost, and reducing the waste that goes to the landfill.

Thanks for any ideas or links.

City of Calgary does this.
We each have a green bin for compostables.
Saves on land fill sites.
Now on Saturdays, gardeners can go with a shovel and container and pick it up for free.

Ellen, we have a wonderful location where we can bring any type of waste--leaves, kitchen scraps, etc. and place in a marked bin. They then will use them appropriately to create compost that can be used in gardens. There is no cost to us, but there is a request of very low fees for each type of drop off. Whether or not you leave a contribution is up to you. I believe most people do.

You can find the people who run / support this at our local festivals. They give away free containers for collecting kitchen scraps, and hand out information about the site.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the service .

However, here's a link to search results that all contain useful information for your goals. https://www.google.com/search?...

I hope this is helpful in some way, and I fully applaud you! Good luck!

thanks so much for the comments and the links.

I will let you know how it goes.

I live near Savannah, Georgia which is in Chatham County. The county picks up all yard waste (leaves, branches, pine straw, paper bags filled with weeds, etc.) and in 2010 avoided nearly $233,800 in disposal fees by recycling and diverting over 8,350 tons of yard waste collected.

The county chips up everything, piles it in huge piles so it can compost and age; they turn it several times during the process. They call it mulch and give it back to the residents who pick it up for free. I sift the mulch and use it the same was I'd use pine fines to mix planting soil. I don't use it in the veggie garden. And this stuff is hot, hot, hot to the touch.

Nice.
We sometimes also get compost from the county (not the city), and I use it in my beds, but not on anything that I might eat.

greene said:I live near Savannah, Georgia which is in Chatham County. The county picks up all yard waste (leaves, branches, pine straw, paper bags filled with weeds, etc.) and in 2010 avoided nearly $233,800 in disposal fees by recycling and diverting over 8,350 tons of yard waste collected.

The county chips up everything, piles it in huge piles so it can compost and age; they turn it several times during the process. They call it mulch and give it back to the residents who pick it up for free. I sift the mulch and use it the same was I'd use pine fines to mix planting soil. I don't use it in the veggie garden. And this stuff is hot, hot, hot to the touch.

Ditto here. There are too many foreign objects in our free (first 500 pounds) of their mulch to ever consider it for my vegetables.

we have found condoms among other yucky things.

ellenr22 said:we have found condoms among other yucky things.

Ewww.

Same here.

NYC just started city-wide composting of yard waste and food scraps. We have brown bins to put it in. I compost already but I don't put in anything dairy or meat-related so that goes in the bin. And I don't compost the bajillion pine needles from my pine tree so that goes too.

I'm not sure but I don't think they give us any compost back (I wouldn't take it anyway). I think they are going to use it in our parks as fertilizer and mulch. I'm okay with that.

I honestly didn't think I'd use the bin all that much but so far I've put it out almost every week. It will really cut down on our landfill use even if only a fraction of people actually do it.

Our town has a pretty sophisticated compost system which is privately run by a family owned corporation, Lenz Enterprises. Their end product is similar to Cedar Grove Compost and I know that they collect yard waste from surrounding cities up to about 50 miles away. They charge the public by the yard for the compost, and are competitive with that sold at the dirt store. My husband toured the facility and it is pretty scientific re tracking moisture, heat, turning, and whatever else is involved. I've been happy with their product. That may be another avenue to explore if you have a local sand/gravel company. Strangely, our rural area does not offer yard waste pickup even with this facility so handy. Go figure.

I'm surprised your city-wide composting would take dairy or meat?

bxncbx said:NYC just started city-wide composting of yard waste and food scraps. We have brown bins to put it in. I compost already but I don't put in anything dairy or meat-related so that goes in the bin. And I don't compost the bajillion pine needles from my pine tree so that goes too.

I'm not sure but I don't think they give us any compost back (I wouldn't take it anyway). I think they are going to use it in our parks as fertilizer and mulch. I'm okay with that.

I honestly didn't think I'd use the bin all that much but so far I've put it out almost every week. It will really cut down on our landfill use even if only a fraction of people actually do it.