Arlington food scraps containers

[Anonymous]

I haven't had any issue with the bag dissolving, and I only take it out once a week. If I fill it up before trash day, I tie it and put the full bag in the freezer until trash day.

I can't believe how much people complain around here. Or maybe I can.

[Anonymous]

Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

[Anonymous]

Get a Vitamix composter. Much more efficient and you end up with completely dry compost. I talked to Dante who does our yard waste and he thought it was a much better solution. Arlington County needs to step up if they want people to compost.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have to use a bag at all. I tried the little basket for one week & didn’t like it. Now I just collect scraps in a bowl & dump them directly into the green bin every day or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

I’m not anti-composting — I’ve had my own compost pile for most of my adult life. But this is a classic example of something that feels “green” but does t actually do anything for the environment. There’s no way that the energy and materials involved with manufacturing special little compostable bags, distributing them, manufacturing special containers, having trucks drive around and pick up waste & deliver it to a central facility, etc, is more environmentally friendly than simply putting that relatively small amount of waste in the garbage that will be picked up anyway and sending the landfill, and letting it decompose there. If you really care about this, make your own compost pile and use it in your garden.

[Anonymous]

I have had no issues with the bag dissolving, maybe because we keep the bin in the fridge?

[Anonymous]

I take mine out every 3-4 days. I’ve gotten a little zealous about it and getting my DH to use it.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks for all the views! Sounds like the best plan is to just take it out more frequently, and maybe skip the green bags (I will do this after I run out at least, since I don't want to spend anything to buy more).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

I’m not anti-composting — I’ve had my own compost pile for most of my adult life. But this is a classic example of something that feels “green” but does t actually do anything for the environment. There’s no way that the energy and materials involved with manufacturing special little compostable bags, distributing them, manufacturing special containers, having trucks drive around and pick up waste & deliver it to a central facility, etc, is more environmentally friendly than simply putting that relatively small amount of waste in the garbage that will be picked up anyway and sending the landfill, and letting it decompose there. If you really care about this, make your own compost pile and use it in your garden.

If you'd done any research about the Arlington program, you'd know that the compost facility is actually on the way that the trucks drive anyway. And if you actually even live in Arlington, I'm surprised that you don't know that we don't have landfills here--our trash is incinerated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can put paper grocery bags in green bin so we have been dumping small container into those first.

Op here, I thought about trying this. But one time I had paper bags and some oily pizza boxes in the green bin and the crew didn’t take it. So I wasn’t sure if that was allowed.

Green bin with leaves, paper bags, and pizza boxes was all picked up today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tie off the top of the bag without removing it from the bin. Take the whole bin out to the green can and dump the contents in. If the bag has dissolved at all, you haven’t tracked the mess everywhere and can just rinse the bin out afterward. No mess.

I did try doing that but the bag had dissolved so much I wasn't even able to pull it out!

Just turn the whole thing over and dump it into the green bin - there’s no reason to pull the bag out first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

I’m not anti-composting — I’ve had my own compost pile for most of my adult life. But this is a classic example of something that feels “green” but does t actually do anything for the environment. There’s no way that the energy and materials involved with manufacturing special little compostable bags, distributing them, manufacturing special containers, having trucks drive around and pick up waste & deliver it to a central facility, etc, is more environmentally friendly than simply putting that relatively small amount of waste in the garbage that will be picked up anyway and sending the landfill, and letting it decompose there. If you really care about this, make your own compost pile and use it in your garden.

If you'd done any research about the Arlington program, you'd know that the compost facility is actually on the way that the trucks drive anyway. And if you actually even live in Arlington, I'm surprised that you don't know that we don't have landfills here--our trash is incinerated.

LOL then. Your trash is incinerated, but you’re “green” because you’re composting food waste? It doesn’t matter if it’s “on the way,” hauling and producing infrastructure to do all this still takes energy and resources. For what, a small fraction less stuff to be incinerated (that, by the way, is a lot less toxic than the stuff that is being burned)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

I’m not anti-composting — I’ve had my own compost pile for most of my adult life. But this is a classic example of something that feels “green” but does t actually do anything for the environment. There’s no way that the energy and materials involved with manufacturing special little compostable bags, distributing them, manufacturing special containers, having trucks drive around and pick up waste & deliver it to a central facility, etc, is more environmentally friendly than simply putting that relatively small amount of waste in the garbage that will be picked up anyway and sending the landfill, and letting it decompose there. If you really care about this, make your own compost pile and use it in your garden.

These are not dedicated trucks just for food waste. We put it into the yard waste bins, which the county has been picking up for years now. Pretty much zero extra resources after the initial distribution of buckets.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, we have easily halved our trash volume by breaking out food waste, food containers, paper towels, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, my elderly parents in California have been doing this for years, it's not that hard. You can put newspaper or paper bags if there's leaking, but I use these bags and carry out every couple of days and don't have that issue.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094MYC6MX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you can't do it for yourself, then do it for your kids.

I’m not anti-composting — I’ve had my own compost pile for most of my adult life. But this is a classic example of something that feels “green” but does t actually do anything for the environment. There’s no way that the energy and materials involved with manufacturing special little compostable bags, distributing them, manufacturing special containers, having trucks drive around and pick up waste & deliver it to a central facility, etc, is more environmentally friendly than simply putting that relatively small amount of waste in the garbage that will be picked up anyway and sending the landfill, and letting it decompose there. If you really care about this, make your own compost pile and use it in your garden.

If you'd done any research about the Arlington program, you'd know that the compost facility is actually on the way that the trucks drive anyway. And if you actually even live in Arlington, I'm surprised that you don't know that we don't have landfills here--our trash is incinerated.

LOL then. Your trash is incinerated, but you’re “green” because you’re composting food waste? It doesn’t matter if it’s “on the way,” hauling and producing infrastructure to do all this still takes energy and resources. For what, a small fraction less stuff to be incinerated (that, by the way, is a lot less toxic than the stuff that is being burned)?

Here’s where the Arlington material goes. It’s just a big outdoor compost pile in Manassas. They don’t mention any controls for methane produced by the composting process. The incineration facility is in Alexandria. That’s not “on the way.”

https://www.freestatefarmsva.com/about-freestate-farms

https://www.covanta.com/where-we-are/our-facilities/alexandria

Still looking for more studies that have even looked at this, but this Canadian study concluded that there’s less GHG impact from sending food scraps through a sink food waste disposer.

https://www.sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2012-04_Organic%20waste%20management%20-%20garburators%20vs%20composting_McKenzie.pdf

The literature consistently indicates that use of FWDs/municipal sewage system is a preferable organic waste management strategy to a centralized composting program from the perspective of global warming potential. This is due to (1) the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the pickup, transport and processing of organic waste in a centralized composting process and (2) the ability of wastewater treatment plants to create usable energy from sewage sludge.

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5.1 SUMMARY
This report qualitatively evaluated the environmental impacts associated with two organic waste management strategies for multi-family homes in the City of Vancouver: a centralized composting program and the use of food waste disposers (FWDs) and the municipal sewage system. Environmental impacts were assessed using both peer-reviewed literature and grey literature, which included reports and case studies. Evaluation focussed on five main environmental categories: diversion potential, global warming potential, water use, useable products, and effluent/emissions.
The literature presented conflicting results. The strongest evidence in support of a centralized composting program was in terms of diversion potential and the eco-toxicity. The strongest evidence in support of FWD use and the municipal sewage system was the issue of acidification. The environmental impact categories of global warming potential (GWP), water usage and useable products did not provide as consistent or as clearly defined results.