Interesting. You'd have to live in an area that has lots of cloud-free days.

I wouldn't be crowing about it just yet. Unless I missed it, I haven't seen profitability figures, especially long term projections (SWAGs). I know there was a huge lot of hoopla when Madison WI started up their recycling program. We were told how the businesses would be taxed for 10 years to get it started and after that, it would be self sufficient. Later on, there are the excuses of how the material costs have gone up, the product price drops, this does that, that does something unexpected, yada, yada, yada and we are going to have to pay for it.

But lets say, it does work out, so what? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. What was that saying about sowing seeds in a parking lot? Some will grow. Hell, even Adolf Hitler wasn't 100% bad. Sure, on the whole, he was bad and did bad things but if you look carefully, you will see that he initially made Germany better than it was.

I believe the intent is two sided. First and foremost is the need to cut the amount of solid waste going into the landfills. Secondly, to make something usefull out of garbage. The fact that they are able to sell the product is a bonus. Any municipality that thinks they are going to produce revenue out of recycling is just kidding themselves. It costs money to pick up your garbage, always has, always will, especially in our society. If you can take part of that solid waste, make something worth having, and lighten the cost in the process, thats pretty good work. Don't know what kind of pie in the sky the people of Madison were sold on, but I am surprised to hear that you were expecting a recycling program to pay for itself.

Hitler has no place in this discussion, seems like someone trying to hijack this topic and turn it into another excuse for diatribe-laden finger pointing.

How so? I thought the compose will still decay during winter months.

Bacteria slow down during cold weather. In my own little composter it takes longer during our mild winter (didn't even get much frost this year) as compared to the summer sauna.

The point is that is this portion of theprogram self sufficient? IOW, if it cost me $3 to do it the "old way", will it still cost the same or more. Either way, let us know. Otherwise, it sounds like a used car salesman who will sell you the car by extolling all the virtues and conveniently forgetting to metion the costs.

Not if it is at a loss, it isn't.

But that is the question. Will it lighten the garbage burden or will it lighten our wallets?

I live there but I am certainly not sold on that idea. Many residents were because they told us how the recyclying program (just that portion) will pay for itself and then some. Me, I knew better that it will end up like all govt programs. In the "albatross around the neck" file.

Sorry you are a little sensitive about Hitler. The point remains that in most things, there is some good that comes out of it whether we care to admit it or not. CMAC was trying to extoll how those SF Loonies are right this time and the point is that even IF they were, they might not be right most of the time.

If only the world were big enough for everyone to have five acres.

- Peter.

No garbage system is self sufficient. It costs money for your garbage to be dealt with. Landfills are getting overfilled, the amount we put into the ground needs to be reduced. There will be a cost to do that, and if that cost is even partially defrayed by making something useful and selling it, thats a bonus. Sounds like the system up there in WI was sold by a regular snake oil pro. The only way a recycling program can make money is by charging for the removal, or only accepting material that has been sorted and brought to them. Whether it will lighten your trash load or your wallet, I believe both. But, as the number of landfills drop, disposing of your garbage will cost more and more, like everything else.
The post was originally speaking about food and other organic matter being collected, rather than being out in with regular trash. Somewhat different than recycling glass, plastics and metals.

Good point, especially 5 arable acres. I dunno what one would do with 5 acres of that gawd-awful Chilean desert.

But will it defray part of the cost or will it end up sucking on the tax roles? Don't you think that as tax payers we are entitled to the truth?

Nah! Doesn't take much to sell these people on such programs.

What they told us was that if we build this plant, it will cost $X. We will bill the businesses in the form of a tax. We can recycle the aluminum and it will cost $5 a pound and we can sell it for $8 a pound, etc, etc, etc.

I think having the household sort it out was necessary. They wanted us to sort out the recycles from general garbage and further sort out the recycles. Lately, they gave us 2 cans. A green can for recycles which they pick up every 2 weeks and it is unsorted and a brown one for trash. Since they went this route and made it easier, I have been dumping whatever is recyclable into the brown cans instead of black bagging it all.