We will compost all your organic waste for you, but there is no garbage pickup here and no garbage dump within 50 km. As such, other than organic wastes (including diapers) which can go into the compost, and recyclables, which can go in the recycle bins provided, guests are requested to pack out what they pack in. Nevertheless, there is a garbage can and several recycling bins in the community building. There are also several composting buckets for all organic wastes beside the kitchen sink.
Organic waste (including food or diapers) deposited into a garbage quickly becomes a health hazard with associated bad odor and pest infestation. As such, guests are requested to never deposit organic waste into the garbage or recycling bins. In the past, there have been guests who mix all of their garbage, recycling and organics into one or more bags and leave them behind. It then becomes necessary for me to immediately dump these bags and sort the recycling and organic wastes out, as If I don’t do that, I will need to drive 50 km to the dump within the next couple of days in order to avoid odor or rodent problems.
I often wonder about people who leave garbage behind and particularly those who leave cigarette butts on the ground. Do they not notice that there is not one cigarette butt or scrap of garbage on the ground? Do they not realize that I need to pick up every tiny bit of garbage that they leave behind. The worst time waster for me is having to pick up tiny bits of plastic (micro-plastics). Someone once pulled an old disintegrating tarp out of the back of their truck, leaving hundreds of tiny bits of plastic on the ground. It took me hours to pick up each tiny bit.
Quite a few people leave food behind. Microbes belong in the compost, not in the garbage. I love composting and other types of organic matter recycling. I have several compost streams and love examining the diversity of life in each. My various compost streams consist of fresh and aged, organic, non organic, and composts with manures in them. My problem is with the non-organic and processed foods that guests often leave behind. I don’t really want that stuff in my compost, but its better there than in the garbage.