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DCL
You may not be aware that the United States decidedly leads the world in one not-so-green category: Waste generation. And though the nation recycles and/or composts about 34% of all municipal solid waste, the average American still throws out about 1,200 pounds of waste every year which could be composted.
If you did compost all that waste, the carbon emission savings would really add up*: Granted these are average statistics, but for each pound you didn't just put into the landfill you're avoiding 2.5 pounds of CO2 emissions. Compost your thousand pounds plus of waste and your knocking 3,000 pounds off your personal carbon footprint—about 7% of the statistically average American's carbon footprint.
To put that into perspective, that 3,000 pounds of carbon emission reduction is equal to the following activities:
Eating a Vegetarian Diet for a Year and a Half Eating a vegetarian diet is one of the best ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint, but even if already do so or remain a roving carnivore, putting your appropriate waste into the compost bin for a year will further reduce your carbon footprint.
Selling Your Clunker for a Prius OK. Composting won't save the 5,000 pounds of emissions a year that switching from a car that gets low or average mileage (they're pretty much one in the same in the US) for a high mileage car like a Prius, but composting for a year will get you about 60% of the way there. Not bad for food scraps.
Sweating a Bit & Putting on a Sweater If you turn up the temperature on your air conditioner in the summer by 3°F and turn your heater or thermostat down by 3deg; in the winter, you're going to save both on your energy bill but also knock down your personal carbon footprint. Compost at the same time and you've doubled your reduction.
One Medium-Haul Flight This perhaps says as much about the high impact of a little flying as much as about the power of composting, but flying from New York City to Denver and back emits as many greenhouse gas emissions as composting your waste for an entire year. That's London to Athens return for any Europeans reading this.
One Six Thousand Mile Train Journey Long distance travel on train is a happy medium between the sky high emissions and low comfort of flying and the low comfort and even lower emissions of long distance bus travel. How does it compare to compost? New York City to Los Angeles and back is similar emissions to composting for the next year.
* NOTE: Your Emission Reductions May Vary One thing to keep in mind with this sort of comparison: The amount of emission reductions you're going to get from composting is proportional to the amount of waste you generate. That 1,200 pounds is a statistical average in the United States. The ultimate goal here is to reduce waste, even waste that can be composted. So if you're doing a great job and not even generating much waste to start with then good on you. Just compost the rest and you're setting a green example for us all.
Where to begin? Here are some great composting tips to get you started.
