Who is this ominous-sounding 'Council' that you speak of?

Just ignore the new baby version. We do, don't send anything to the 'Council'. That's only for those who don't know any better.
You could of course send them all your stuff, then buy back finished compost! Sounds a bit redundant to me.

I know there's a limerick in this somewhere!

Dear Flora was ordered to share . . .

Copied from your info letter:

"If you compost at home already please continue to do this but the new collections will be useful for things like bones and cooked food which you can�t put in your home compost bin."

Sounds like this is for people that don't or can't compost already. Great idea. Wish we had something like this in our part of the world.

I can remember when I was a kid growing-up in Southern California the city had open bed garbage trucks that would come by and pick-up buckets of household kitchen scraps. As a resident you were required to separate this waste from your normal paper - cans and bottles which was picked-up with different trucks. I can remember being able to smell these trucks coming. I'd like to think that they had a useful purpose for these kitchen scraps like composting or feeding hogs or something but don't really know. Perhaps someone who recalls this would know what they did with it.

Greg
Southern Nevada

Back from contemplating about this all morning. Flora, do you, by any chance, have another bone to pick with this council? Something they've done in the past that requires some degree of personal revenge?

Because this presents a once in a life time opportunity to present yourself before the council, complete with diagrams to tack on the walls, odiferous samples, planarians in formaldehyde, soggy bread that looks like Ringo Starr banging the drums (if you look at in in a certain light), a packet of note cards that you can drop and shuffle, then show up wearing a battered cardigan, gum boots - the standard getup for this kind of thing - and launch into a discourse on the necessity of separation of bread from compost.

Another chance like this may not come your way. Here, they televise the town council meetings, and we do get this sort of thing. Very enjoyable.

Sounds like your council folks have thought through the process pretty well. Which probably means that whatever of your kitchen scraps you divert from your own composting to the city effort, it won't be wasted. I like that thought.

From time to time my composting gets ahead of me, or my 'life' intervenes with family or health or civic issues ... and I often end up just burying my bucket of scraps instread of adding to compost pile. So maybe, as suggested, you can use the city compost for things that don't do well in your compost, and on the occasion when you get too busy to feed your composter, there will be the city bin to take up the slack. I like that thought. And of course, it will be used by others too busy, spaceless, or clueless to compost on their own. Kudos to your council

We've had the same system here for quite some time - early '90s I believe. I give them all protein based products but keep everything else. :O)

Thanks for all the interest. Many people in our city live in flats (appartments) and they tend not to compost so this is ideal for them. I think I'll be doing what tiffy suggested and give them the bones, fat and other gungy stuff whilst keeping the lovely potato peelings and banana skins for myself. Obviously in the winter I'll be sharing more generously as I decide that a trudge through the rain to my own heap is too much to contemplate. BTW 'The Council' is not particularly sinister, they answer to elected representatives who decide policy and they are responsible for education, roads, parks, planning, rubbish collection etc.

Flora, we've had the same thing here for quite a while.

I have my own backyard compost, but it's not feasible for me to compost things like meat, gravy, oily foods, plate scrapings, milk products etc because of the odour and skunks or raccoons getting into the bin. I've even had problems with cats and rats getting in there.

So my raw vegetable peelings get a handful or two into the worm bin every so often, the rest go into my backyard compost along with hair, leaves, etc. Anything else I put in the green bin for city collection.

By the way, the city hot composts it in a large facility, and residents can get free compost at one of their pickup sites.

Here's the link to our city's green bin site, and it has a list of what can be composted. Just cross off the list anything which can go into your personal bin, and put the rest in the green bin.

Here is a link that might be useful: Green Cart