Overall, waste doesn't break down very quickly in a landfill. What does break down, does so anaerobically, releasing a lot of methane gas. The waste is usually packed very tightly together, and covered in layers of dirt or other such substance. You can see how this works with a handful of shredded paper. It will mat together and take forever (in the vermi/composting world) to break down.

I doubt a worm bin will be enough to keep up with all of your biodegradable waste. I have trouble keeping up with a compost bin as well as a worm bin. I still have to make a paper run to the recycle center once a month.

Besides, it needs to be transported TO the landfill, burning gas.
Now, somebody might say "Well, if the truck is coming to p/u the neighbour's who is not composting, one drop of gas more or less doesn't really matter".
IMHO, we have to start somewhere. Won't do us or mother earth any good if everybody would think like that.

Yeah, I had considered the transportation to the landfill but was more concerned about the supposed benefit of "reduced landfill space." I didn't think about the anaerobic decomposition of the waste in the landfill though causing a longer break down period.

I started a worm bin and the first day, I realized it wasn't going to keep up with my waste. Within the week I had rubber-maid style stackable bins. They have been going for three weeks now and I think they might manage the majority of me and my wife's food scraps and paper waste. Not all of it but a definite improvement.

It has been shown that you can read a paper from the 1940s and see the hotdog/hotdog bun that was thrown out along side it after coring a landfill. Seal of organic matter from sun, air and water... not much natural decomposition takes place.

Of course this depends on the landfill and how it's managed.

Again.. maybe one person (household) doesn't make an appreciable difference in the landfill but if you convince a friend or two and each of them convinces another soon we will make a difference.

Get a pickle barrel/ syrup barrel and make a compost bin / rotator to keep up with waste.

Even IF it did decompose fully in a landfill.. why would you want to throw out all that good "soil"!!

--chris

In 7 months of vermicomposting I have produced about 10 gallons of vermicompost. 10 gallons of waste not thrown in the landfill over 7 months is not enough to make any significant impact on the landfill.

Separating yard waste, paper and cardboard from the waste stream makes a lot more sense if the goal is to save landfill space.

I kinda figure you have to start somewhere I have zero landfill waste and it still doesn't make a rats behind to the dump
Do it for your garden and brag to your friends that you are doing it to save the world(: thats what I do

We have to start somewhere. If everyone recycled their food waste, what a difference it would make!! Besides our worm bins, we also have a dual drum composter and a homemade wire compost bin for all of our yard trimmings and for the materials that would take too long to break down for the worms. We also are very conscious of what we buy. We try to purchase products in packaging the we can compost or recycle.

What is important is that the worms aerate your waste constantly... in doing so they keep your waste aerobic. this is why a good worm bin (or grub composter) doesn't smell.

Anaerobic decomposition is what causes landfill gas or methane. This greenhouse gas is 20 times more potent then CO2.

Yes worms will breakdown your waste and generate CO2, but they prevent the buildup of methane and other stinky anaerobic gasses. Also I believe their is much to be said about keeping your nutrients "active" within your own ecosystem close to home and in the garden.

There is a value to vermicomposting beyond saving the landfill space. The vermicompost, rich in microbial action, helps soil sequester CO2 (pull it from the air and hold it in the soil where it is used by plant roots). Even on a small scale, this lessens greenhouse gases.

Ten gallons of vermicompost, based upon my experience, is probably a good fifty gallons of waste not trucked to the landfill.

I've reduced our family's trash by 80% by being diligent about vermicomposting everything that's biodegradeable. It has really opened my eyes to the immense volume of packaging that feeds our family's waste stream.

Did you read where San Francisco is implementing a new regulation REQUIRING residents to separate out their compostables from their recyclables and from regular trash?
Wonder how that will work and what the response to it will be....
mbetts

I live in Shreveport, Louisiana. We have a recycle system where we have a big blue roll-around trashcan. It is a limited type program.. Paper,both newspaper and like junk mail is ok.. but no wax paper or food product stuff etc..
NO plastic bags but plastic containers are ok. (at least I thorw my plastic containers in it). All cans are ok, but should be rinsed if a food can. Personally I keep my own beer and pop cans even though the price for them has dropped considerably. And glass is ok..

My wife and I probably have a single bag of trash that goes to the landfill during a normal week. Most of our paper products and kitchen waste goes into the compost system. Now that I have a small worm colony started, they will start getting some of the kitchen stuff..

Yes, San Francisco has begun an aggressive recycling program. The City has made it easy by providing bins and weekly pick up for all single-family dwellings and apartment buildings under five units. (Larger apartment buildings have to opt in to the program.) Even though DH and I have been recycling paper and glass for years, this year with the new recycling program we were able to switch to a much smaller trashcan that we only partially fill.

The green bin is great. I am able to include all that food waste that I couldn't give to the worms -- meat, bones, citrus, etc.; I no longer have to worry about overloading my freezer with worm food; AND, the resulting San Francisco compost is sold to wineries! :-)

Also, some of the reason that things take so long has nothing to do with anaerobic activity. It has to do with chemicals released from other trash that inhibit microbiological activity altogether in spots. Liquids and gases from allowed trash, but you have to also consider all the trash that is added that isn't supposed to be allowed. Every seen your neighbor (or been guilty of it yourself) put something in the trash that shouldn't have been? Many people put stuff in a trash bag to hide the contents. Batteries for example. Bottles of used antifreeze for another.

Water. Did anyone mention the fresh water tied up and extensively polluted in landfills? How much water weight is in vegetable scraps? A lot. Those of you who freeze your stuff and then thaw it can see how much water comes out because of the act of bursting cell walls and releasing water. Keeping that out of a sealed landfill is also contributing to fresh water conservation.

One last thing: If you think putting paper (other than phone books, which are at the end of the recycle life) in the worm bin or compost is doing a good thing for the environment I urge you to think again. If you can recycle it, that is definitely better than encouraging the need to cut down more trees and process more paper product. Maybe if hemp - not talking about pot, but any of the multiple other hemp plants that don't produce a marketable "drug" that are also just as illegal - were legalized (as the paper industry keeps trying to tell the governments) the argument would be different. As it stands composting paper may be better than a landfill but it is not better than recycling.

I have found that just because you recycle your garbage doesn't mean that it ends up being reused.

When i lived in an area that recycled heavily (Bellingham Wa). We separated out the garbage into different bins. Plastic and cans, glass, colored glass, cardboard, newspaper and paper. I separated diligently for over 20 years. Just before i moved 4 years ago it was announced in the local paper that almost all the plastic, colored glass, cans, newspaper and 80% of the paper was just dumped into the dump because they couldn't find buyers for it.

The only part of the paper they could easily sell was home type computer paper. They sold it to a company that made note paper from it. They didn't re-process it they just chopped it into six squares, turned it over and used the back side.

Interestingly enough they could sell a limited amount of one item that we didn't separate out. Disposable diapers, they separated them out at the recycle center. A toy manufacturing company bought them. The toy company would wash and sanitized the diapers then shredded them up plastic and all. Then use the resulting fluff to stuff toy animals. Yuck!!!

Well, here that is not the case with paper. It is actually in high demand.

A few months back the state announced that there would be a budget cut for the recycling programs. There is a company here that has big bins positioned around towns and cities. Non-profits can host them for fund raising and get a certain amount of money for certain tons of paper. That company announced in the Indianapolis Star and our local paper that people should just turn their paper in to the bins rather than put the paper in the home bin to go to the curb because then they will be guaranteed to be recycled. Our paper products all go to the local library's bin. See the link if you want to know about this company.

Here is a link that might be useful: Abitibi Paper Retriever

Good question. Most of my kitchen scraps would go down the drain via the garbage disposal. So by vermicomposting the scraps, I'm saving water, which is important to do in many areas where we are facing a drought this summer.

I'm late to this thread but wanted to put my 2 cents worth in. If you are using corrugated cardboard boxes in you worm bins, as I do, this keeps them out of the land fill. Cardboard boxes are one of the worst offenders for packing things down and preventing decomposition. Besides, they're free! Just go to any liquor store and they'll give them away. I shred them and use them as bedding for the worms and the worms do quite well with it. It also makes a wonderful compost product when the worms are done with it. The best compost I've seen from home composters. I agree with those posters above who say "every little bit helps".

In my country the recyclables are handled by small scale contractors to the City. The stuff is seperated and prepared for final re-processing by poor people who otherwise would not have jobs. In the areas where the City's contractors do not collect , homeless people can make a few cents by taking cardboard, paper and bottles directly to depots in shopping carriers. Scavengers at the landfill sites do the same thing. Not a great life - but it keeps them alive.

to me i think the stuff we use in our landfills are going to break down just the same from nature. I dont honestly think humans can destroy the earth. Im not into the global warming nor has man lived upon this earth long enough to tell me that this exists. I keep my worms for just a couple simple reasons. A. to go fishing with the worms. and B. So i dont have to keep buying the worms. I dont use any of the benefits from it such as the waste for the garden. *I may start doing that this fall. I dont think its wrong for people to have differences in opinions. I think if a person chooses to live a so called cleaner lifestyle that is totally up to them. I dont pick on or think that the people that are head over heels to go green are stupid. I do think they may be mislead by the goverment and scientists. I just try to keep life as simple as i can and do the things i enjoy.