Only 5.3 percent根据美国环境保护局的数据，美国的食物废料在2015年被堆肥。美国人向垃圾填埋场寄了剩下的3900万吨食物废料，这是104多个帝国国家建筑的重量。
根据Brenda Platt, Director of the Composting for Community Initiative at the地方自力更生研究所（ILSR），家庭和小型堆肥系统对于提高堆肥率至关重要，并且是best ways发展社区。普拉特告诉《食品坦克》：“房屋堆肥显然已经不足了，但具有比以前想象的更大的影响的潜力。”w88优德老虎机平台
To James McSweeney, Owner and Technical Lead of堆肥技术服务，数百万吨的食物废料表明我们可以做多少：“目前的有机废物量意味着到处都有改进的机会。当涉及食品系统革命者的更大目标时，社区系统与替代方案之间没有比较。” McSweeney向食品坦克解释说。w88优德老虎机平台乔什·惠顿（Josh Whiton）makeoil.org, argues to Food Tank that “the generation of waste and greenhouse gas emissions is a decentralized problem… so, it makes sense to address these problems in a decentralized way.”
In the past decade, governments have incorporated composting initiatives into the environmental agenda of cities likePortlandand旧金山。2019年4月，纽约市市长德布拉西奥宣布了一项“Green New Deal” which includes the resolution to make organics collection mandatory—extending to the whole city previous efforts on municipal food scraps and yard waste collection and composting. However, attention towards small-scale composting has also been increasing. McSweeney tells Food Tank that the increase in attention is part of a natural progression. “It just makes sense to start small and grow, as demand for products and processing capacity grows… Small and micro-scale operations break into new territory, raise awareness, and build trust in their communities.”
Households have a lot of potential to be the drivers of waste diversion, creating positive financial impact on cities. The ILSR report shows that 10,000 composting households can divert 1,400 to 5,000 tons of waste from curbside collection, with potential savings ranging from US$72,000 to US$250,000. Platt highlights the importance of community composting: “If every school, correctional facility, and university had composting systems on-site, we wouldn’t need a 50-acre site to work on food waste diversion. Smaller sites are faster to build and lower in cost, and the result would go back to local soils,” Platt tells Food Tank.
To McSweeney, the ability of individuals to compost independently is important. “The beauty of composting is that it is a relatively simple process that is inherently local—at least compared to other forms of recycling. Rather than scale we need to focus on outcomes such as: keeping resources and building soil locally; preventing pollution and contamination of our soils. […] The real change is going to come when we can realize the value in building and maintaining the soil in our communities,” McSweeney tells Food Tank.
但是，主要挑战之一仍然是缺乏意识和教育。根据普拉特（Platt）的说法，缺乏能力或基础设施是美国食物浪费率这么低的原因之一。普拉特（Platt）认为：“社区不应将能力定义为一个大工业场所，县或区域地点。”麦克斯威尼（McSweeney）w88优德老虎机平台告诉食品坦克（Food Tank），“教育社区，尤其是年轻人，有关资源管理，支持当地企业，创造良好的薪水工作以及减轻食品系统不平等的知识比专注于规模更为重要。”
McSweeney also argues that there is no one size fits all solution. “For example, composting at home is not for everyone. We need a diverse and dispersed approach to managing the food wasted by the residential sector: we need drop-off points, curbside collection, and backyard composting education.” In his book, McSweeney emphasizes that when it comes to the micro and home-scale, there is a lot of room for new systems and improving upon existing models.
随着ILSR等实体继续为政府和基金会开发培训材料，其他举措可用于支持家庭浪费转移和堆肥。今年，食品坦克出版了w88优德老虎机平台文章mentioning several community composting initiatives across the country. Whiton decided to use an online platform, MakeSoil.org, to create a composting community. “When I built a compost bin in my apartment block and then went door-to-door inviting my neighbors to bring their food scraps to it, I became my neighborhood’s Soil Maker,” Whiton tells Food Tank. “My neighbors became what we now call Soil Supporters. Making soil from our food scraps is one of the most powerful feedback loops readily available to us. But it doesn’t happen if we just toss our food scraps into yet another bin. Making soil together is one of the most impactful actions we could possibly take, and enough of us doing it will reverse the trends.”
