Some of the more cutting-edge cities out in California are already making separate collections of organic waste for compost as part of their municipal garbage collection. But in cities that haven't gone that route yet, entrepreneurs are rising to the challenge.
A company called Compost Cab is operating in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, offering to pick up for a fee and compost waste from residential customers and businesses (apartment buildings, schools) who want to do this.
Here in New York City, there are non-profits that collect banana and orange peels, apple cores, used coffee grounds, wilted cut flowers, and the like, at farmer's markets, and at least one non-profit that accepts commercial quantities of this sort of trash, but I'm not aware of anyone offering residential pick up.
This is a great example of what might be called free-market environmentalism. The top-down approach would be for the government to pass a law telling everyone they have to separate out their organic garbage, then tax everyone to pay for government workers to run around collecting the stuff. The free-market approach is to let people who choose to do this — because they think it's better for the environment, because they think it will help them attract customers, because it reduces their garbage collection costs or the smell and pest problems of having the food waste mixed in with their other trash — pay for it.
