San Francisco is probably America’s most eco-friendly city. It currently recycles an amazing 72% of its waste and has a successful public transport system.

Now, the city hopes to increase that recycling rate to 90% with the introduction of mandatory composting.

The San Francisco Board Of Supervisors voted 9-2 to require residents and businesses to sort recyclables, general rubbish and recyclables for weekly collection. Those failing to comply with the new ordinances, which take effect in the autumn, will be hit with fines.

The Board hopes that San Francisco will dramatically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and stop using incinerators and landfill by 2020.

When food waste, plant waste and other organic matter are sent to landfill, air cannot get to the organic waste. As the waste decomposes, it forms methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, which damages the Earth’s atmosphere.

According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, methane is 72 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

When this same waste is composted aboveground at home, oxygen helps the waste to decompose aerobically. This means no methane is produced, reducing global warming.

San Francisco sends its food waste and other compostable material daily to the Jepson-Prairie composting facility in Vacaville, CA. The facility’s output is sold as soil improvers to vineyards, retail soil bagging operations, landscapers and the erosion control industry.

San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said. “We can build on our success.”

Hopefully, San Francisco’s example will be followed in other big cities around the world.

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