With recycling costs spiraling out of control, Boston councilor says it's finally time to try city curbside composting

The price depends on the price they get for selling the processed recyclables. (plus the cost of throwing away trash that ends up in recyclables)

Linda, don’t ever change.

Food decomposes no matter where its thrown. When it is thrown in with landfill trash the food decomposes creating methane. Lots of methane is not good. So the funny but foolish sarcasm aside, city wide composting decreases the methane generated, it reduces how much space is needed in a landfill and it provides a valuable resource, namely compost.

For a gardener compost is liquid gold.

...could also lead a push to repeal the bottle bill, which makes recycling more expensive, by removing valuable aluminum cans from the recycling stream.

The bottle bill should be expanded to include water bottles, which make up a measurable part of recycling (and significant litter).

As for aluminum, I have seen the recycling guy reject all-aluminum cooking pans. They aren't actually interested in the metal.

Makes scents on every level.

People don’t properly sort items now, you think they’ll walk down the street to the “neighborhood receptacle”. I’m amazed at how many people “recycle” styrofoam. We have a long way to go.

THIS x100000000000

We need to do this. It works very well in Europe. VERY well. No more 'trash days'

My only fear is shady enterprise would use it to dump toxic waste or things that aren't household trash.

Cities used to be able to sell the waste materials, not they can't.

https://www.wired.com/story/since-chinas-ban-recycling-in-the-us-has-gon...

Basically, municipalities (or private companies contracted to municipalities) collect recycling curbside, and compact it in trucks, which then bring it to a recycling center. From the recycling center it is then filtered into different materials, and sold to companies, usually overseas, who reprocess it into new things.

With widespread adoption of single-stream recycling, the rate of recyclables being contaminated by non-recyclable materials has skyrocketed, as has the total quantity of recyclables on the market. This means that the companies buying recyclables can be a lot more selective about what they buy, and have raised the standards for material purity. If the recycling center can't find a buyer because the materials aren't pure enough, it ends up in a landfill, which costs money (instead of selling it and making money).

Some places have begun switching away from single-stream recycling as an approach to remedying this problem. The materials will be more pure and thus fetch a higher price on the market if they're not all combined together first (e.g. broken glass shards from being compacted won't be in everything, paper won't have gotten wet from all the not-fully-empty bottles and cans). There's also some evidence that single-stream recycling leads to overconfidence about what can actually be recycled, and encourages people to toss in things that can't, thinking that someone is sorting it anyway so whatever item will get removed if it's not recyclable. Spoiler alert - it won't, because it will have already gotten compacted together with everything else. We can help as individuals by being more picky about what we actually recycle, but the problem goes far beyond that, and even if everything we put out is actually recyclable, that still doesn't mean it necessarily will be recycled.

In short, we recycle so much that a lot of what we recycle is no longer cost-effective to actually recycle, and ends up in landfills at cost, rather than sold.

Disclaimer: I am basing most of this on a fascinating article I read recently about how the percentage of waste that actually gets recycled in the US is down lately, despite recycling rates being up. Some or all of it may be incorrect or not applicable everywhere.

"The greenies" (First, denigrate people who are trying to improve things.)
"the cure-all it was cracked up to be" (It wasn't.)
"they're now falling over themselves" (They aren't.)
"Which leads me to assume" (As always, no actual knowledge involved.)
"Be at peace with that." (You should think this way.)

A tiresome little troll.

again and again.

be at peace with finding a way to go fuck yourself.

I have composted. Properly maintained composting does not generate unpleasant smells.

As for harvesting methane it's worth mentioning that a smart society tries every approach possible to finding a solution. Usually most approaches will fail. What makes the effort worthwhile is that each strategy for addressing a problem which works is a success that obviously solves the problem.

It's obvious you know little about composting. Instead of practicing ignorance try learning a little about composting.

You say man alters his environment. Hope you are at peace with the environment altering humankind. Especially in the form of mass deaths:

Bacterial infections which can not be cured.
Now fungal infections which can not be cured.
Hurricanes that are making some places no longer habitable for humankind.

I respect life; that means I have a moral obligation to respect what gives us life: our environment. To be at peace with wanton destruction of what keeps us alive? That's comparable to saying that people will cause harm to others. So instead of wasting money on police just be at peace with the fact that some people will harm others no matter what.