TODAY’S MODERATOR: Turning food waste into gas

How about a bit of good environmental news — this from a recent New York Times.

"New Yorkers already have blue and green bins for recycling glass, metal, paper and plastic. But now brown bins for organic waste are starting to appear all over the city. These plastic totems are part of the city's multimillion-dollar campaign to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on landfills, and to turn food scraps and yard waste into compost and, soon, clean energy.

PERSPECTIVE: Hair? Heck, who needs it?

“The city is employing the primal chemistry of decay. … About 14 million tons of waste are thrown out each year. It costs the city almost $400 million annually just to ship what it collects … to incinerators or landfills as far away as South Carolina. The largest single portion of the trash heap is organics” such as food. “New York’s residential organics collection program is already the largest in the country: More than a million residents in parts of all five boroughs have curbside service. By the end of next year, officials say, all city residents will have a way to recycle their food scraps and other leaf and yard waste.”

Kinda cool. Email rrollins@coxohio.com.

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