ecoFAIL

While living in Portland, I had wanted to start composting in my apartment. I always thought it was such a waste to have to throw out a whole bag of trash that wasn’t even half way full because of funky smells or fruit flies. At first, I started to throw all food related items into a separate bin that I would take out more frequently but that in itself had it’s own problems. It was a plastic container so it would contain the heat created by decomposition thus speeding it up thus causing many gross messes inside. It was pretty icky. Plus, I still didn’t like the fact that I was throwing away things that could be made it mulch. I investigated ways to compost in my apartment sans backyard and even sans balcony but it all seemed pretty overwhelming. There were worms and keeping them happy and maintaining a happy ecosystem with the right things which meant I had to eat the right foods. Not to mention keeping the flies and smell at bay. On and on to the point where I didn’t even know where to start.

Then certain life changes took place and I found myself living in San Francisco and discovered the green bin. I rejoiced thinking that all of my problems were solved! How wonderful to not have to worry about it, just put it in this green bin and it is magically taken away for someone else to worry about worms and ecosystem balance.

I looked in our trash room for our own green bin and there was none. There were tons of black and blue ones, but nothing to put my food into. Stupidly, I thought it would be as easy as talking to the building manager and our own green bin would appear and life would be perfect, or at least the composting thing would be solved. Looking back, I kind of wish I had just called and requested the bin myself and then see what happened when it showed up.

The first trick was figuring out who to talk to. For some reason my roommate and I have never had direct communication with our landlord. We actually talk to our maintenance person who then talks to the landlord. We asked him if we could please have the contact information for the building. I guess now I should also point out that we rent a condo who is owned by our landlord but the complex is run by a type of home owner’s association. He asks why and then makes a phone call to the landlord. And here proceeds the worst game of telephone ever. It starts with the landlord thinking we want to compost in the apartment and (what I assume) flipping out about it. Obviously, they know very little about composting as it’s really not that big of a deal. Then there is some back and forth (thus the telephone game) of trying to clarify what we really want (a green bin in the trash room). The landlord doesn’t have the first clue what we are talking about. Have they not lived in SF? Have they not noticed the green bins on the street or wondered what they were for? The conversation ends with the landlord saying they would contact to building with our request. We had little hopes that that would actually pan out. The landlord didn’t even know what we wanted, how could they convey that to someone else?

Little surprise that never panned out. We had to come up with another plan...