Althouse: "Madison’s organics-collection pilot program will end next week, a victim of people putting too many non-compostables into their compostables carts..."

June 12, 2018

"Madison’s organics-collection pilot program will end next week, a victim of people putting too many non-compostables into their compostables carts..."

"While the load of food scraps, soiled paper and other material delivered to a Middleton digester in March had fewer plastic bags, metals and other noncompostables than the prior load, 'the contamination within the material created a very labor-intensive and slow process, which also requires thousands of gallons of water'.... That contamination included lumber scraps and two seemingly full bottles of liquor... and the extra water and labor needed to separate debris and process the compostables meant a $200-per-ton fee from the digester’s operator...."

The Wisconsin State Journal reports.

Two seemingly full bottles of liquor? Why are people so bad at doing things? Are they so drunk they don't notice they're throwing out full bottles of liquor? Are they trying to ruin the program?? I don't get it. You'd think composters would be the punctilious sort.

71 comments:

Anonymous said...: People will always be people and trying to regiment them for "societal good" rarely works. "oh it won't hurt if I don't follow the rules just today" say 20,000 people. I assume this was a 'free" service so it was treated like that was the value it had- $0.; 6/12/18, 12:36 PM
alan markus said...: Seems like the Madison culture is based on "do as I say, not as I do". Don't know if this came up here before:

Madison officials, bicycle advocates eschew city's mandatory registration program

Absent from the list of about 9,700 people who own one or more of the 13,982 currently registered bicycles in Madison are 19 members of the 20-member City Council, Mayor Paul Soglin and both “bicycle advocate” appointees to the city’s Pedestrian/Bicycle/Motor Vehicle Commission, Grant Foster and Aaron Crandall.

Also missing: Dave Cieslewicz, the former Madison mayor who pushed for Madison to achieve platinum status and started the Ride the Drive event, in which a couple of major arteries are closed to vehicle traffic and opened to bicyclists. After leaving the mayor’s office, Cieslewicz served as executive director of the Wisconsin Bike Fed for four years.; 6/12/18, 12:40 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Two seemingly full bottles of liquor? Why are people so bad at doing things? Are they so drunk they don't notice they're throwing out full bottles of liquor?

My guess they are alcoholics hiding their bottles from family members.

An old neighbor of mine hide bottles everywhere. I would even find them in my bushes.; 6/12/18, 12:41 PM
MadisonMan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/12/18, 12:45 PM
MadisonMan said...: alan markus, thanks for finding that. I had read it, but couldn't find it to post it.

I laughed when I read that. Typical Madison.; 6/12/18, 12:46 PM
Mad Boston Arab said...: it's a couple of kids who needed to get rid of the Alcohol quickly before they get busted.; 6/12/18, 12:46 PM
Rusty said...: Why are people so bad at doing things?
Because there are no immediate consequences for doing bad things.
I think someone who was badly hung over threw the liquor in there.; 6/12/18, 12:52 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: That contamination included... two seemingly full bottles of liquor... and... meant a $200-per-ton fee from the digester’s operator....

I've always found that liquor aids in digestion...; 6/12/18, 12:56 PM
Original Mike said...: ”Madison’s organics-collection pilot program will end next week, “

GOOD!; 6/12/18, 12:59 PM
Original Mike said...: ”The cost of collecting individual household substrate compared to the benefit is astronomical,” [Soglin] said.”

Even after accounting for the monetary value of virtue-signaling?; 6/12/18, 1:08 PM
rehajm said...: It's really quite simple people:

Recyclable materials are: Newspaper, magazines, and related fibrous products and cardboard that has been broken down to fit within the recycling container except food boxes because we can't recycle the boxes with grease on them. Same goes for papr napkins and other greasy items- don't put them in either. Glass containers (clear, brown, green); aluminum and steel cans; and plastic containers numbered #1-#7. The recycle logo and number is sometimes but not always located on the bottom of the container. Yes, plastic bags are made of #2 and #4 recyclable plastic but they cause other problems at the recycling center like get caught up in the machines so don't put them in with the other recyclables, and yes styrofoam is #6 but we don't have the equipment to handle it so don't put that in either. All recyclables need to be inside the 18 gallon container, anything else will not be taken. NON RECYCLABLE ITEMS: Plastic bags are not recyclable. PLEASE NO PLASTIC BAGS! Plastic bottle caps are not recyclable please remove them from all bottles. The little rings that keep the cap in place are technically not recyclable but also impossible to get off the fucking plastic bottles, so you're pretty much on your own with how you're going to get those off.

Like we said. Simple.; 6/12/18, 1:10 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Full bottles of urine is more likely the case.; 6/12/18, 1:11 PM
richlb said...: Urine.; 6/12/18, 1:13 PM
Greg said...: My municipality forced the issue by cutting regular garbage pick up to every other week. Recycling and organics are still weekly. If you don't use the organics bin your garbage will get pretty stinky and maggoty in 2 weeks. I haven't heard of any issues with non organics being thrown in; 6/12/18, 1:13 PM
JAORE said...: Scout around your home and look for that "dispose of properly" notice. Twisty fluorescent lights? Batteries? Household cleaners?

Now cringe at the thought of how many of these items are tossed into bins heading for a land fill.

Recycling efforts are mis-targeted (cardboard!), woefully complex (the blue bin is for certain plastics, the red bin....), not cost effective (see above)....

But it feels just so darn good.; 6/12/18, 1:15 PM
Sebastian said...: "Why are people so bad at doing things?"

Why, oh, why do ordinary mortals continue to disappoint the anointed? It's a puzzle.

But why are progs so bad at doing things that work, always assuming major benefits, always underestimating costs, always misjudging what people will do in fact--transit, recycling, you name it.

And of course, the economics of recycling are worsening by the day, as China declines our junk.; 6/12/18, 1:28 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: "...and two seemingly full bottles of liquor..."

Were the seals intact? Could have been urine.; 6/12/18, 1:37 PM
TestTube said...: Composting is easy. You just put stuff in a pile and leave it there until it is dirt.

You do not need a government program to help you compost.; 6/12/18, 1:42 PM
JAORE said...: "“The cost of collecting individual household substrate compared to the benefit is astronomical", he said.

I'll bet that, while better, collecting from the large producers does NOT make the process cost effective. But this question appears to have been left unasked/answered.; 6/12/18, 1:43 PM
Wilbur said...: rehajm said...
It's really quite simple people:

A good choice of address. I love how liberals love to condescendingly address others as "PEOPLE", especially when bossing them around.; 6/12/18, 1:47 PM
Original Mike said...: ”You do not need a government program to help you compost.”

“Helping” is not what the government has in mind.; 6/12/18, 1:50 PM
JAORE said...: FWIW, I compost. One of my favorite memories of (last) son John is telling him, at age 13, to use a pitchfork to turn the piles. He was convinced it was make work or punishment. The look on his face was priceless.

By the by, the paper also links to an article that says to please quit using biofilm (corn based) bags in the compost bins. Though designed to be biodegradable/compost ready..... they are not.

But it's not all bad news, they conveniently include instructions on how to make your own bags by newspaper or poster board.; 6/12/18, 1:51 PM
mockturtle said...: These are the same people who leave their shopping carts out in the parking lot.; 6/12/18, 1:51 PM
gilbar said...: like most bottle, i doubt that the 'seemingly full' bottles were full of anything as delicious as whiskey.

Ames Iowa has the perfect system
you throw your garbage away, it's picked up; and then:
the city resource recovery plant
smashes it into pieces about like pea gravel (almost sand)
a magnet pulls off all the ferrous metals (iron, etc), which is Sold
an electro-magnet (somehow) pulls off the non ferrous metals, which is Sold
a cyclone (what else?) separator pulls off the light fibrous stuff...
.... which is piped over to our powerplant, and burnt ontop of the coal*
the heavy stuff (sand, rocks, etc) are sent to a landfill

less than 10% of our trash goes to the landfill
our coal* costs are reduced 10%
the money we've made selling metal has paid for the plant
we don't have to separate our garbage

See? perfect**

coal* Ames' powerplant was converted to natural gas a few years ago, system still works

perfect** IF you
Already have a powerplant
don't throw too much glass*** into the garbage; glass coats the reaction chamber
people throwing away oxy acetylene tanks tended to Blow up**** the plant

too much glass*** took years to notice this; no restricts on glass, but we DO have recycling bins for people that want to reduce expenses (and taxes)

Blow up**** hasn't happened For YEARS now; they claim they've figured this one out; 6/12/18, 1:56 PM
halojones-fan said...: "why are people so bad at doing things?"

So the whole program assumed that people would see a basket and *not* just put whatever they needed to discard into it?; 6/12/18, 2:03 PM
jimbino said...: Here in Kenosha we have recycling rules dumber than those of Madison, I imagine. I can't use Menard's "compostable" yard-waste bags for recycling yard waste. Nobody tells me what it costs to recycle paper, plastic, aluminum and glass or reimburses me for the labor or energy costs involved in washing, sorting and delivering compostables and recyclables.

I think recycling is nothing more than a religion like vegetarianism, and I actually do everything I can to frustrate and derail the socialist recycling religion.; 6/12/18, 2:20 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Were the seals intact? Could have been urine.

Only one way to know for sure...; 6/12/18, 2:35 PM
MadisonMan said...: I compost. Except if it's trash day, and the inside compost collector bin is full, I dump it in the trash. See? I am lazy.

OTOH, my bike license is up to date.; 6/12/18, 2:37 PM
Begonia said...: Doesn't anyone else see the connection between Justice Breyer's belief that people are too lazy to mail back postcards, and the way that voluntary compost program participants are too lazy to do it properly?

I am with Justice Breyer. I have a pretty low opinion of people. You need to give people more tangible "carrots" and "sticks" if you really want them to do something right. For example, lots of people probably buckle their seatbelts because their car makes really annoying noises at them if they don't, not because "its the law" or because they are concerned for their safety.; 6/12/18, 2:45 PM
Unknown said...: The city (Denver) gave us a recycling bin. Someone in the apartment building across the alley decided that he (or she) was going to save the planet by recycling - using our bin. It's very handy for us; we just throw everything in the regular garbage because the recycling bin is always full. Of course, that's because whomever is filling it up doesn't move it across the alley to be emptied on pickup day.

We do separate out the aluminum cans and just leave them in the alley for the homeless folk to pick up. Clearly there's some profit in that since people want (for some definition of "want") to pick it up.; 6/12/18, 2:53 PM
reader said...: Maybe we are bad at doing things because the various groups trying to direct our activities can't agree on the most important issues to be addressed.

In San Diego is it recycling or conserving water?

EDCO's Recycling Guidelines
Glass Bottles & Jars
Recycle all food and beverage containers—clear and colored glass. PLEASE RINSE [emphasis added]. No need to remove labels though.; 6/12/18, 2:53 PM
Hagar said...: Bicycles have to be licensed in Madison World?; 6/12/18, 2:55 PM
RichardJohnson said...: I am not surprised. My HOA has two dumpsters: trash and recyclables. Repeatedly construction junk, mattresses, and furniture get dumped in the recycle dumpster.

There was a compost heap at my childhood home. On several occasions I discovered a possum or a racoon in the compost heap.; 6/12/18, 3:02 PM
Jersey Fled said...: About the only things it makes economic sense to recycle are glass, aluminum and iron.

Pretty much what we used to recycle 50 years ago.; 6/12/18, 3:05 PM
stevew said...: Recycling, and composting, is a virtue signaling farce.

-sw; 6/12/18, 3:16 PM
Otto said...: Ames system with robots and additional improved optical recognition hardware and software will be the future.
"Why are people so bad at doing things?' Utterance from a confused secular humanist with a touch of virtue signalling.; 6/12/18, 3:20 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Gilbar -

Toured a plant in southern Ohio about like that. 1793-4, it was.

After the metal bits were extracted, the glass bits were optically identified as the fell and sorted with a puff of air into green, brown, clear.

After water extraction the paper waste was sent to a fluid bed furnace and energy extracted for some purpose or other. Ash was sent to the waste water plant next door to use as a settling agent.; 6/12/18, 3:40 PM
Jupiter said...: Khesanh 0802 said...
"I assume this was a 'free" service so it was treated like that was the value it had- $0."

You have that exactly backwards. The idiots who dream up this bullshit figure that other people's time is worth $0/hour. And on that basis, it makes perfect sense for other people to spend an hour or two a week sorting garbage. But not everyone on Earth is an idiot. It appears their are even a few non-idiots in Madison.; 6/12/18, 4:05 PM
sykes.1 said...: I taught this stuff to engineering students for 37 years. The sad truth is that college educated middle class people are intelectually incaapable of sorting recyclables to produce “clean” product streams.; 6/12/18, 4:08 PM
Jupiter said...: Jersey Fled said...
"About the only things it makes economic sense to recycle are glass, aluminum and iron."

It makes zero sense to make cans out of aluminum. Technology exists (has for decades) that can make steel cans that are lighter and cheaper than aluminum, and use far less electricity to make. But California won't allow people to sell those cans. California requires that beverage cans be made of aluminum. Why? Because the aluminum cans are a valuable subsidy to the recyclers. I kid you not.; 6/12/18, 4:09 PM
MadisonMan said...: Glass is made of silicon. Earth will never run out of Silicon. Glass recycling makes little sense.; 6/12/18, 4:15 PM
Original Mike said...: ”Glass is made of silicon. Earth will never run out of Silicon. Glass recycling makes little sense.”

There’s more to it than crustal abundance. The earth will never run out of aluminum either but because of the energy requirements of aluminum smelting, recycling Al does make sense.; 6/12/18, 4:23 PM
eddie willers said...: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

Milton Friedman; 6/12/18, 4:23 PM
LA_Bob said...: Begonia said, "Doesn't anyone else see the connection between Justice Breyer's belief that people are too lazy to mail back postcards, and the way that voluntary compost program participants are too lazy to do it properly?"

This was my first thought as well. Composters and recyclers who can't follow instructions; voters who won't send back cards. What the hell is the difference?; 6/12/18, 4:29 PM
tim maguire said...: My city has a composting program that seems to work pretty well, but the city complains that too many non-recyclables are winding up in the recycling bins. It doesn't seem to occur to them that a program that is so complicated that even with instructions you often can't figure out which plastics go and which don't is going to get a lot of non-recyclables in the recycling bin.; 6/12/18, 4:34 PM
Browndog said...: I compost-but for selfish and capitalistic reasons. I need the dirt, and it's the best dirt money can buy, free of charge.

I didn't realize there were people that use composting as virtue signaling, saving the planet by not allowing biodegradables from returning to the earth.; 6/12/18, 4:35 PM
Original Mike said...: i don’t understand the logic of separate “organic” collection. What do they think they are accomplishing?; 6/12/18, 4:37 PM
tim maguire said...: Blogger Original Mike said...
i don’t understand the logic of separate “organic” collection. What do they think they are accomplishing?

Some cities worry a lot about landfill space. I never understood why either--landfill space is literally unlimited.; 6/12/18, 4:43 PM
TD said...: Look up the City of Denton, Texas recycling program.

It can work if you want it to no matter what the citizens do in regards to seperation of trash and recyclables.; 6/12/18, 5:11 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Wsj had an article recently on recycling economics...

Recycling, Once Embraced by Businesses and Environmentalists, Now Under Siege
Local officials raise fees and send recyclables to landfills as economics erode

https://www.wsj.com/articles/recycling-once-embraced-by-businesses-and-environmentalists-now-under-siege-1526209200; 6/12/18, 5:31 PM
Jupiter said...: Original Mike said...
"i don’t understand the logic of separate “organic” collection. What do they think they are accomplishing?"

Giving people an opportunity to spread noxious weeds and poisons into other people's gardens. It's the gardening equivalent of anal sex.; 6/12/18, 5:40 PM
Original Mike said...: ”Giving people an opportunity to spread noxious weeds and poisons into other people's gardens.”

The City of Madison composts yard waste and gives the results out for free. Twenty-five years ago, as a new homeowner, I thought “great!”, and used it for a couple of years. I’m living with the consequences to this day.; 6/12/18, 5:46 PM
southcentralpa said...: "seemingly full ... of liquor" On the off-chance you're not being disingenuous, who's going to volunteer to taste it ... ? Never, ever bet that a discarded bottle doesn't have urine in it.; 6/12/18, 6:41 PM
madAsHell said...: Two seemingly full bottles of liquor?

I'm guessing that most women have never peed into a bottle.; 6/12/18, 6:45 PM
stephen cooper said...: In case you didn't know, hipster liquor - the kind that is not made by the Campbell Soups of the liquor industry like the Beamses and the Daniel's, but by the smaller guys -often (probably less than one in 100 bottles, but probably more than one in a thousand) goes bad before it is sold, due to bad sealing practices or just bad luck (when it is wine we call it corked, it smells like must and mold and alcohol). In all of one midwest city it is not unlikely there are at least two hipsters who just assume that liquor is good for the recyclers. That may be what happened.; 6/12/18, 7:07 PM
Gordon Scott said...: Two earnest young women came around a few weeks ago while I was out front working on the garden. They wanted me to accept a FREE compost bin. I explained that I don't need one as I do my own. They insisted that having a compost bin was better than pizza and sex. I finally walked them to my back yard and pointed to my compost pile. "That's why I don't need a bin." They were amazed. They were also amazed that I could keep three households in salsa, tomato sauce and pasta sauce with my raised beds. Kids these days, eh?; 6/12/18, 7:15 PM
chickelit said...: In a perfectly green world, everything is recycled: Even the past.; 6/12/18, 8:38 PM
JAORE said...: composting, is a virtue signaling farce.

I assume you do not garden, or you are only referring to community composting.; 6/12/18, 9:23 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Leftists are mostly hypocrites when it comes to recycling an composting.

Lazy hypocrites; 6/12/18, 9:49 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I compost and recycle. I know full well that most of the recycled stuff ends up in teh landfill.
Boulder has great recycling with Curbside pick up and drop off bins. AND hard to recycle stuff too. (tho you have to pay a fee, and it's a separate facility)

I pay a fee to recycle hard white Styrofoam.

When I stop to toss large items in the large bins, I am always always shocked to see how most people DO NOT follow the instruction. They don't flatten, they just use it as a dump. I once pulled a fully intact NON-flattened box out and sure enough there was a Styrofoam liner inside. the sign says NO STYRPFOAM.

LAZY PROGS.; 6/12/18, 10:00 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Progs don't rinse stuff. Some do, but since Boulder is 70% prog and 80% of what I see in the recycle is a cluser-F and against the point of recycling in the first place. Maff; 6/12/18, 10:02 PM
Bill R said...: The average work week for Americans is 44 hours. The government work week is 36. Let's redress this old inequity by asking government employees to spend 8 hours per week in landfills sorting recyclable materials from the rest.

While we're at it, who else has too much free time? Welfare recipients of course. Incarcerated criminals. Illegal immigrants. College professors should spend at least 20 hours per week in the landfills, gender studies professors should spend 60. Ditto for college administrators. Lawyers should spend 40 hours per week recycling unless they are divorce lawyers, then they should spend 60 hours unless they are class action attorneys who should never see sunlight again.

Telemarketers and televangelists should be kept permanently underground until they grow large pale eyes at least 6 inches in diameter.

That will do for a start.; 6/12/18, 10:36 PM
Drew Cloutier said...: In my recycling household, I have to regularly police the segregated recyclables to remove that which another in my household wishes were recyclable but is not.; 6/12/18, 10:37 PM
Ken B said...: Two days after I point out Althouse doesn’t understand markets she posts her misunderstanding of another market.; 6/13/18, 3:27 AM
Ken B said...: Core elements of the system gilbar explains
- incentives
- division of labor
- economies of scale

Core elements of what Althouse imagines is right
- no incentives
- no division of labor
- no economies of scale
- feel good virtue signaling; 6/13/18, 3:35 AM
gilbar said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/13/18, 3:55 AM
gilbar said...: dbah said: " I once pulled a fully intact NON-flattened box out and sure enough there was a Styrofoam liner inside. the sign says NO STYRPFOAM.

not to boast for Ames (GO CYCLONES!) but, do you know what happens to a non-flattened box full of styrofoam in Ames? It goes into the regular garbage, and becomes electricity

free plastic grocery bags from Fairway become free fuel for city electricity
free Paper bags from Fairway become free fuel, reducing city costs AND CO2
My Liberal neighbors would ALL make a big show of using their cloth bags, which cost the city money in free fuel. I'd always look at them, and wonder; 6/13/18, 3:57 AM
MadisonMan said...: free plastic grocery bags from Fairway become free fuel for city electricity
free Paper bags from Fairway become free fuel, reducing city costs AND CO2

I am suspicious of the claim of reduced CO2 because of burning the bags. Bags that are burned are replaced by bags that are produced at some distance away. There are transportation costs involved in getting the bags to Ames, and that liberates CO2.; 6/13/18, 8:25 AM
viator said...: Have you ever looked at the assorted bins at any public venue? Each class of bin has equal and similiar amounts of various types refuse inside. People are voting with their discards.; 6/13/18, 9:46 AM
viator said...: China Refuses to Take the West’s Recycling
“Large amounts of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in the solid waste that can be used as raw materials,” Beijing wrote to the W.T.O. “This polluted China’s environment seriously.” Chinese officials also complained that much of the recyclable material the country received from overseas had not been properly cleaned or was mixed with non-recyclable materials. The sudden move has left Western countries scrambling to deal with a buildup of plastic and paper garbage while looking for new markets for the waste.
NYT; 6/13/18, 9:51 AM
southcentralpa said...: @madashell jinx!; 6/13/18, 10:26 AM