So, I had this really terrible job in college

While I talk a good game about environmental protection (and am kind of a lunatic rearding food choices, shutting off lights like a lunatic, that kind of business), there's one eco-friendly step I really, really can't make: I can't handle compost.

I spent a semester or so in college working for the compost program, driving around in a remarkably stinky van from dining hall to dining hall, collecting the campus's food scraps and tipping them into a dumpster down by the soccer fields. I managed to make my clothing filthy enough that my roommate came in one day and wondered if there was an infestation of some sort in our bathroom, and I had a close call with a raccoon on at least one occasion. The $7.25 an hour (generous for student pay!) wasn't worth it, and I quit way, way sooner than I meant to.

Since then, there have been a few other composting endeavors, none of which were more successful than the first. There was the compost bin in a study-away house (mold), the backyard composting in early grad school (fruit flies), and on and on. I've totally given it up by now. Is this a good decision? Um. You could make a statement either way, I guess, but I do feel like I'd be a regular composter if only I were a better human being.

Now then.

In the Public Health badge, a scout is urged to learn where his garbage goes. This whole composting discussion? Pretty much a long-winded way of getting right to it.

I discovered, today, the most depressing video game ever: the Gotham Gazette Garbage Game. Sure, I've played it twice so far, but I don't think I have the heart to give it another go. It's engaging, no question, but would only have made ten-year-old Emily weep. (You think I'm joking? Hah. Just ask my parents.) However, when you decide to go play it yourself (which you will, I'm sure), you'll see the same thing I did: that something like 30% of New York's garbage is compostable in one form or another.

Holy crap.

That, my friends, is a lot of garbage. Imagine if every third week, you just decided, eh, heck with it, I won't bother producing any trash whatsoever. Yeah. Eliminating food waste in the garbage would pretty much have that effect.

For a slightly more well-thought-out reaction than "holy crap," I talked to Caroline Kruse, the development director at the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which offers composting programs in New York. (For the record, and especially in light of the iPad fever in the general public, they also have electronics recycling. I'm just saying.)

The LES Ecology Center has two major things going for it: volume and enthusiasm. Seriously. They started out twenty years or so ago at the Union Square Farmers' Market processing vegetable scraps, and by now they're collecting roughly 6 tons of food per week for composting at East River Park. (Now, when you're thinking of 6 tons, I'd like you to think, instead, of 3 male walruses. Or six and a half SmartCars. Or something. Um.)

Now. I started out explaining to Caroline that I don't compost. I have a small apartment with no outdoor space. I fell into a dumpster in college. All that. But she told me about something I will absolutely not try in my current place, but will maybe consider someday: a worm box. Now, I remember reading about this kind of thing back in high school, but really. LESEC holds regular workshops setting up non-composters (like me) with this kind of thing. Take a pound of red wigglers (the Cadillac of worms), add 'em to a slightly-ventilated plastic box, and add your weekly table scraps. (Caroline suggests that you stick to about 3 pounds per week, but also advises me that one might avoid weighing garbage if, instead, you just assume that 2 adults = 3 pounds. Sounds good to me.) This is a lazy person's composting -- no hauling food outside at night, no shovels, no angry raccoons. The worms go through your waste (no meat or dairy!), and in 3-6 months, you go from a mess of squirmy worms to a great big box of dirt. Go team!

But wait! Six month old garbage hanging out in your kitchen? You crazy girl. Aha! While I have no months-old indoor compost experience, she assures me all will be well. Caroline described her compost bin as smelling "like earth, or like when you go into a forest." I can handle that.

Well, I can't handle it right now. The combination of a teensy apartment (the compost box would have nowhere to go but actually on the living room floor) and one particularly aggressive cat (who would imagine nowhere for himself to go but into the compost box) would mean trouble. Maybe someday, though? We'll see.

All this, and I've still avoided discussing landfills. Hold tight, good buddies. Garbagefest '10 continues.