Putrescible Waste (by sarah)
Idiocy - true idiocy.
Today I walked past several resturants who had their waste out ready for collection - now for a start there was so much of it, it was spilling out of their bins and secondly what should I see but lots and lots of food scraps - salad etc...
Why is this compostible stuff being wasted when we are still mining the endangered habitates of the peat bogs for gardening?
This is idiocy on many levels - there are bacteria composters which would surely be safe for restruants as they are sold as safe for the kitchen? If the individual restruants can not be held accountable for this gross negligance then what of the the refuse company and council? Why are restruants not given special bins? Have they been and they are just not using them?
It disturbed me how much glass appeared to be mixed in as well - sigh.
All this food waste results in putrescible waste i.e stuff that goes putrid, stuff that can go liquid and leach or ooze its way out of the landfil sites and contaminate the water etc... This is a major problem in the waste disposible industry to the point of millions being spent on lining the pits to prevent this oozing - but what a waste of resources and money all round. Not only would most of this stuff make good fertilizers reducing the need for man made stuff but it cuases so many contamination issues it is untrue.
Again this is an example of humans who should know better being so stupid it is astounding.
I'm going off to drain our wormery now and sulk.
Mon 19th Mar 2007 8:43 pm 
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By Ben, Tue 20th Mar 2007 @ 8:20 am
Actually it's quite sensible for the restaurants, a classic externality. Because they are not compelled to do the right thing, and it is even slightly more expensive to do the right thing, they don't.
Eventually someone else will pay the cost, the "tax payer" to pick up extra waste and future generations to clean up the mess. But it isn't the company, so they make more money now.
It is a well established business principle to take advantage of as many externalities as possible. This explains, for example, why the planet is so polluted and why computers are so insecure.
By Charlee, Tue 20th Mar 2007 @ 11:34 am
I'm with you on this. It really upsets me how much waste they generate. The government requires industry to recycle a percentage of it's produce etc, why do they not put this requirement on commerce? Some councils are considering charging households per bag of non-recyclable waste, why not start with the shops? And don't get me started on how much it pained me to see cafes throwing away perfectly good food each night, when there were homeless guys starving on the street.
By @ndy Macolleague, Tue 20th Mar 2007 @ 2:07 pm
You have land... set up a larger composting plant and then sell compost. You could probably negotiate with the resturants to find out how much their paying for commercial waste services and then take organic matter away for less.
By Matthew, Tue 20th Mar 2007 @ 6:22 pm
But in the not-so-distant future, there will be cars that are powered on waste material such as this, providing such a power source that it enables amongst other things time-travel. Maybe this is just the sort of thing that needs to be made publically so a long-haired mad-scientist can develop it? Rather than having to fight the Libyans for plutonium - it seems much more appealing!