While I don’t question the statement that 20% of Oak Park households pay for curbside composting pickup, I take issue with the assertion that 20% of households participate in the program. Participation means actual usage. Do what I’ve done — select a few alleys at random, walk through them shortly before the Waste Management truck arrives, and peek inside the compost bins to see how many actually contain compostable material. Fewer than a third of them, in my experience.
You would think that people who are paying for compost bins would actually use them, but far too many apparently don’t. I suggest that the low-hanging fruit is motivating the folks who already demonstrated interest in composting, by signing up for it, to actually do it. Leadership by example matters. People pay attention when their friends
and neighbors demonstrate by action that something is valuable to them.
People also pay attention when their friends and neighbors demonstrate by their loss of interest that something is not valuable to them.
Bob Stigger, Oak Park
