More stuff for people who don't understand composting (or maybe how to save a buck) to buy. A stainless steel 1 gallon bucket for $39, I'll stick to my plastic containers for 50 cents, they hold about half a gallon.

'Compostable (small) bags', wow, another idea I can do without. How long does it take to break down? Maybe they can sell a gadget to mix the stuff with the browns after the bag composts.

Yeah, you don't need to spend $ to compost, but you sure can if you want to.

I went for 20 yrs. using recycled 1-gallon plastic ice cream buckets with snap lids. Last Christmas a well-meaning co-worker of my wife gave her a nice thick ceramic kitchen compost pail that looks like the love child of a green garbage can and Plow & Hearth. I have to admit it's nice, it has a nice steel bail handle, heavy ceramic lid with holes and a carbon filter for odors. It's too small, more like a half gallon, and probably cost $39.99, so I would never have bought it myself.

I can't fault people that prefer nice containers in their kitchen, or bags to line them. If it keeps more kitchen scraps out of our landfills, that's a good thing.

As I remember the % of food scraps in the landfills is about 30/33% of what in in garbage cans. Here in Portland Oregon we have kitchen scraps included with the yard debris recycling program and the cute pail distributed to all customers has been successful. I also see many do purchase the green liners, and they keep buying them, so if that's what it takes to keep the stuff being easier to get to the proper compost street side roll cart, it's all good.

As to how long it takes a green liner to decompose, I'll let you know in the fall. My neighbors carts are next to mine, and with my shortage of greens, and excess browns, I have snatched many of those full little green bags of their kitchen scrapes during the colder months this year.

Yes, incurable compost wacko, long term I'm afraid. I just couldn't resist, as my poor cold piles of brown leaves waited for spring. I'd see a little green bag stuffed full of a mix of perfectly chopped vegetable scrapes and coffee grounds, when as if it was an out of body experience, I saw myself walking back to a compost pile, bag in hand. I can't stop. And this spring, I see the big pile is is much better shape than years past.

The city's small compost buckets are much better than things I've used before. Professionals thought this out, knowing they needed to increase user compliance. It's the right size to not be too heavy, big enough that it can go a couple days for most people, has a handy flip handle to carry it out ( Wow.. it's great), and the hinge area is designed to fit most hands..which comes into play each time you pull it out to add something to the little bucket. Wish I had figured out this design years ago myself.

I'll include a link that has the specifics of what we're doing, and has a picture of the little bucket.

Here is a link that might be useful: Making composting easy for the city folks.