Curbside food scrap composting has come to Portland (and I'm on TV)!

Whew! I just spent the morning in front of many TV news cameras discussing Portland's new curbside food scrap composting pilot program with Mayor Adams! It was an amazing experience, and I'm stoked to have been a part of launching the program. Portland peeps, you should see coverage on all of the local news stations at noon and again at 5 and 6 today.

But what a coup for Portland! San Francisco and Seattle have had great success with their food composting programs, and it's so exciting that our turn has come. This pilot program will run for about a year and will only involve 2,000 households. The city wants to get feedback from the program participants and make sure it's working before the city-wide rollout next year. You can't sign up to participate -- everyone in the program will be notified this week. Participants will come from portions of the Richmond, Roseway, Centennial, Hazelwood and Arnold Creek neighborhoods. BUT HERE'S THE COOL PART:

We will be able to compost ALL types of food: meat, poultry, seafood, bones, dairy, grains, veggies and fruit, eggshells, baked goods, coffee grounds -- basically if it's food, you can compost it. They will also accept paper napkins and pizza boxes. All of this will be placed in the yard debris rollcart, along with typical yard debris, and it will be picked up weekly instead of bi-weekly. Each household will receive a 2-gallon kitchen pail to be kept under the sink or on the counter top, making it easy to dump in food scraps.

Think about it: food waste accounts for almost 30% of Portland's residential waste! That's a significant amount. Food in the landfill releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, so we're dramatically reducing toxic emissions. Plus the food scraps will be taken to a commercial composting facility near Corvallis and will be turned into usable compost in only 8 weeks time. The compost in turn will be used by farmers and gardeners to enrich the soil and grow more food (and the lovely cycle continues...).

So a big hooray for Portland and all of the folks in the pilot program! Are any of our readers in the program? Let us know, and please post your experiences and questions here. We'll continue to post about it in anticipation of the city-wide rollout next year. Woo hoo!