in 2007, 165 Mountain View residents participated in a Santa Clara county composting workshop, the Mountain View Voice reported.
In 2010 let’s see how many people in and around Mountain View are composting or will commit to start composting before 10-10-10, October 10, 2010.

Why compost?

• Santa Clara County estimates its landfills will be full in 15-17 years.

• Composting reduces green house gas emissions.

Methane, which landfills produce, has 72 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide over a 20 year period according to The Nobel Peace Prize winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Working Group I’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Waste in landfills slowly decomposes anaerobically, without air, and thus produces methane.  Many locals know that landfills produce methane based on personal experience.  You may remember the methane gas from the Shoreline landfill that filtered through the grass at Shoreline Amphitheatre and that would catch fire when people lit cigarettes.

When waste is appropriately composted it decomposes aerobically, with air, and does not produce methane, though it does produce carbon dioxide.

Overall sending kitchen scraps, yard waste and other compostables, to your compost pile instead of to the landfill significantly reduces green house gas emissions.

After cars and transportation, landfills are one of our areas’ biggest contributors to climate chaos.  The more each of us reduces methane from landfills, the better off we all are.

So let’s get to it –
Tell us about your composting experience or commit to start composting.
Let’s see what a difference we can make all together.