[robbrown451]

It's a nicely put together site and I congratulate your kid on a job well done.

That said, I don't see the space taken up by landfills as a big problem. Not in the US anyway. If they are done properly (and yes, that is a big if), they shouldn't release toxins or otherwise have downsides comparable to all the other sorts of damage we do to our environment.

[smileysteve]

It's not only a big if, it's proven to not be sustainable. 8/10 of the major landfills in my metro have had major leech events in the last decade.

[shoto_io]

Don’t you think it’s unrealistic that all effort is put on #1 topics? What if people genuinely care about problem #3 and #12? I don’t think it’s a wasted effort. Or maybe I’m misreading your comment?

[robbrown451]

I don't think it is a wasted effort.

But I hear this argument about landfills a lot (mostly by adults, which I feel a bit freer to criticize, and mostly with regard to regular recycling rather than composting which is essentially a subset of recycling), and I just don't think it as a big problem as people make it out to be.

Things that emit into the atmosphere (greenhouse gasses and other pollutants), and trash that doesn't make it into landfills are big problems. Another big problem is all the space taken up by other human activities. We're cutting down forests to build homes and grow food, and we see that everywhere and it has a huge impact on our planet. Landfills are a relatively tiny use of space.

But yeah, composting is good. As long as the effort you put into it doesn't make you feel that you've "done your part" and discourage you from making more impactful changes in your lifestyle. I don't have an electric car or solar roof yet, for instance, but I happily vote for representatives who will put significant amounts of my tax money into subsidizing the move away from fossil fuels.