Communal Compost

For anyone who home composts, there's a number of problems that come with the territory. keeping pests out, preventing it from freezing over and filling up to fast in the winter, etc. there's also many people who would like to compost but have no place for the fresh soil, and so send kitchen waste out with the trash, where it will sit, preserved in a plastic baggie, for decades (possibly centuries. I don't know my trash science).

my suggested solution is a number of giant composting stations at regular intervals on city property, manned and run by the city. Each station is essentially a giant dumpster with an underground chamber and accessway. Waste is deposited into the sides through hinged entry ports, and soil can be taken from the basement chamber. (there would be a series of various locks and separators and such for clean extraction of the dirt. perhaps a small room in the basement chamber with a sort of air lock mechanism, otherwise sealed from the compost heap.)

Every year (or suitable interval according to decomposition rate) the city department would send a maintainence crew to remove a portion of soil and make it available to the public at large. Free, of course, because it was their garbage in the first place. The home composters don't have to worry, those who want to have the opportunity, less waste in landfills, more jobs, and everyone gets a free T-shirt and a cup of coffee.

the problem I see is people being too lazy to walk half a block to drop off their garbage. maybe making compost buckets part of the garbageperson's job would be a solution, but I doubt it. The second problem would be McCarthyists who would start raving about how composting leads to godless communism. but oh well