The Compost Problem

One of my current titles is that of Compost Operations Student Associate. My work under that title consists of collecting, sorting, and processing more than two thousand pounds of waste every week. I use a custom-fabricated tricycle (imagine a pedicab, but with a truck bed instead of seats) to collect from 12 pickup sites, twice weekly. There is a second tricycle available for use. Each tricycle cost around $5,000. I am paid $1000 per month for my work. There are two others with my title, each being paid roughly the same as I am.

After sorting organic material from landfill and recyclable waste, I feed the organics into an industrial composting unit about the size of a minivan. The unit was purchased for around $100,000. It is housed in a modified shipping container which was purchased for about $3,000. The composting unit was shipped from Europe; I do not know the cost of shipping, but some google research on shipping rates suggests that it may have been between $1,200 and $2,500. I do not know how much was spent to install the electrical line to power the unit, pour the concrete on which it sits, or pay a forklift operator to position the unit.

Two full-time staff members organize this project. Presuming a salary of $40,000 for these two, total staffing costs for the compost project comes out to about $116,000 yearly.

There are the facts. Here is the problem: the waste generated by the institutions from which we collect contributes to their overall emissions by about 5%. If every member of our compost team performs with superlative skill and efficiency, and every member of the institutions from which we collect puts every compostable waste item in the proper receptacle, we will be able to divert about 60% of their waste from the landfill.

In short, $115,000+ have been spent as a startup cost and at least $116,000 are required to yearly fund a project that reduces the emissions of 12 buildings by - at absolute theoretical maximum - about 3%.

There is also the issue of emissions generated by the compost project itself. A heavy, metal composter was shipped overseas. Concrete has been poured. Half of our staff commutes, by car, more than 15 miles each work day. The electric tricycle I ride is charged using non-renewable energy sources. It takes over 700 gallons of water to wash our compost bins every week. Those bins are made of plastic.

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As more states begin to implement compost operations, it is important to consider the reality of the situation. The reality being that composting is not an efficient way to address concerns about climate change.

I recognize that my situation is different than what composting will look like for most cities that are required to begin the process. My organization bought our own composting unit to process waste from ~40,000 people, while most large composting cities rely on private contractors with much more efficient processes, and collect from far larger populations.

However, a cost-effective process, if illogical, is just an efficiently bad process. That is a fact that my situation does a fair job of illustrating. The area in which my organization collects waste contains restaurants, offices, and classrooms, food halls, and dormitories. Some people bring their organic waste to us from their homes. That setting is a decent representation of a typical city block, and our (ideal) waste diversion rate of 60% is a fair standard for any major city.

Large compost operations are also likely to generate more emissions than I do pedaling around on an electric tricycle. The environmental costs incurred by a compost collection/processing operation scale up directly alongside size.

So, the compost problem: the implementation of compost operations across major cities can expect to reduce urban emissions by a maximum of 3%, and regulated composting seems to be the vanguard for a new wave of environmental policy being rolled out in progressive urban areas.

Is that (hypothetical/ideal) 3% decrease really worth the operating cost?