Posted on 03/06/2015 10:57:50 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
SEATTLE The nations first citywide composting program based largely on shame began here in January.
City sanitation workers who find garbage cans filled with aging lettuce, leftover pizza or even the box it came in are slapping on bright red tags to inform the offending household (and, presumably, the whole neighborhood) that the citys new composting law has been violated.
San Francisco may have been the first city to make its citizens compost food, but Seattle is the first to punish people with a fine if they dont. In a country that loses about 31 percent of its food to waste, policies like Seattles are driven by environmental, social and economic pressure.
But mandated composting reflects a deeper shift in the mood of the nations cooks, one in which wasting food is unfashionable. Running an efficient kitchen where bruised fruit is blended into smoothies, carrot tops are pulsed into pesto, and a juicy pork shoulder can move seamlessly from Sunday supper to Mondays carnitas to a rich pot of broth for the freezer is becoming as satisfying as the food itself.
The ethos stretches from Manhattans best restaurants to the homes of people like Kathleen Whitson, 44, who cooks for her family of four in West Seattle.
Ms. Whitson, who didnt discover fresh garlic until she was out of college, now drops vegetable trimmings in a compost bucket on the counter and keeps a list of whats in her chest freezer on the refrigerator door. A stockpot simmers on the stove and kombucha ferments in the pantry. She cooks more like her grandmother than her mother, a woman she said raised her to believe in the magic of processed food.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My Mother served us Leftovers for 30 years. No one has ever found the original meal.
That. Was. Hilarious!! :)
“Ask me how many meals I can get out of a chicken. Just ASK me, LOL!”
I’m afraid to ask. ;) now I know why the chicken crossed the road. :)
The weird thing is about ten years ago the land fills were complaining that people WEREN’T throwing enough organic, biodegradable material into their trash, that the prevalence of garbage disposals meant people just pitched non-biodegradable stuff in their trash. The complaint was that the organic material helped break down the non-biodegradable material faster, so the land fills needed it to be there in a certain percentage. You know, kind of like a compost does. Now, they’re saying don’t put it in?
1. Roast a chicken. (5-7 lbs. is the best size for all to come.) Serve that at one meal with a salad, bread taters or a side veggie.
2. Take the meat off the bones and reserve that.
3. Make Chicken Stock from the carcass and those veggie scraps you’re been saving in the freezer.
4. Chicken and Rice Casserole from the leftovers.
5. Chicken Soup from the broth.
6. Any meat left? Make Chicken Salad, or add any leftover Chicken and Rice to your pot of Chicken Soup to stretch that for one more meal.
TA-DA! :)
I’d like to see the chart on the sales of garbage disposals in Seattle since the law went in.
They must have taken the hint from Obamacare: if you want people to do something against their own self-interests (not to mention the national interest), make ‘em pay a fine (aka tax).
Pretty much the truth. We “conservatives” were the liberals on the 1970s’ who wanted less government, moved out of the fascist run cities, and started growing our own food, gave our kids colorful hippie names, and lived a life that was simple, environmentally safe, have chickens, maybe horses and a cow or goats, recycle everything and have been using our own reusable grocery bags for 40+ years. Libs discover this and make laws for everyone to do and claim it as their contribution to society. Meanwhile those same liberals live in the inner cities, create more trash, more pollution, and waste more than anyone else. And, they support the fascism of the city governments. So, in reality, they arent liberals at all. Just fascists
They’re Socialists. You’re not supposed to remember what they’re harpin’ on from one minute to the next!
Only know that they’ll be taking away your God-Given Rights at every opportunity. That much you can take to the bank!
Try that in NY, NJ or PA. Your entire neighborhood will be overrun with black bears within a month.
Liberal politicians will gloat until they have to repair all the sewer mains clogged with the food that used to go in the trash that now went into the disposal.
You spoke a heap of truth there, brother!
I know. It’s the same with the “now it’s warming, no it’s cooling” or the “eggs are evil, no they’re great” or “don’t drink coffee, yes you should” crowds. Just a bunch of busybodies who want to crawl into other people’s business, doesn’t matter what the topic or the position or whether it makes sense.
Paint your garbage can the same color red as the tag.
A Country Girl Can Survive! :)
A red sticker??
I’d have to beat them to the punch and paint the whole darn can red first.
Excellent! I’ll be sure to try some of your suggestions. :)
Wish I was in a place to keep a couple of chickens. Those and a compost pile would help solve the problem.
Exactlly!
I have a trash can right by my mail box and easily 85% of my mail goes straight into it.
I have tried to have it stopped but its like there Kramer / Newman scene from Seinfeld.
Every bit of this crap is political.
These are nothing more than useful idiots, blindly driving an agenda that they don’t even understand.
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