Losing 600 million lbs a month

600 million lbs a month - what does that mean? That's a little back of the envelope arithmetic: 20 lbs x 30 million people (1 in 10 Americans) = 600 million. Let me explain.

We've all heard that we need to eat more vegetables, preferably fresh vegetables. So what happens to scraps, stems and peels? According the City of New York, nearly 40% of NYC refuse is organic. It's a huge part of the waste. We can change that.

Since I'm lucky enough to have a small yard in Brooklyn and I've read Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte, I've become a dedicated composter. Composting appeals to the "waste not" voice in my head. It's not always easy. I have my share of rats visiting and my compost is a great hiding place for garden-destroying tiger slugs. But, now that I've started, I can't bring myself to stop. Even during the winter I keep stockpiling and adding to our bins, though the pile is frozen.

Curious as to how worthwhile my composting was, I decided to weigh my compost and post the monthly totals for this year. The weights are for kitchen scraps only and leave out a substantial amount of additional yard trimmings in the summer and fall.

I was happy to see my January total at: 21.76 lbs for my family of 3. At that rate I'll keep nearly 250 lbs of organic matter out of the waste stream this year. My February total was a little less because we were out of town for a week. February came in at 17.375 lbs. So, the total so far is: 39.135 lbs.

If 10% of Americans composted and had totals similar to mine, we'd stop 7.5 bil lbs of organic matter from going to landfills annually or 600 mil lbs a month. Those numbers are staggering. That's the real power of individual action in America, scale. How much fuel does it save to stop transporting 600 mil lbs of waste each month?