By Lisette Johnson
Of the 250 million tons of trash generated by Americans in 2008, only 83 million of it was recycled or composted. Yard trimmings and food scraps—stuff farmers have used to enrich their fields for generations—constituted over 25 percent of municipal solid waste nationwide in the same year. The idea of recycling has become ubiquitous to most New Yorkers; fines are issued for failure to comply and public recycling bins are starting to pop up around the City. And though New Yorkers can count themselves as some of the most Earth-conscious urbanites on the planet (New Yorkers statistically have some of the tiniest carbon footprints in America), most of us do not compost.
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