Nothing smells worse than compost in mid-digest, to use the technical term, and nothing smells more wonderful than the finished product. It has an earthy, visceral, dank aroma that is almost coffee-like in its appeal.
It's great fun to run your fingers through too, especially if you don't mind cuddling the odd red wiggler.
It's hard to believe that the massive pile of multi-coloured frozen goop that greets you these days when you are able to pry off the lid of the compost bin, will turn into that lovely gardener's gold in just a few months, if spring ever returns to these parts.
What got me thinking about compost in the depths of March was talking to Andy Pollock, director of waste management for the Region of Peel, this morning about the pending anniversary of the green bin program.
That's right, as of April 2, Mississaugans will have been wheeling their little green pre-digesters to the curb for exactly one year.
"We've exceeded our project estimates of tonnage by quite a bit," says Pollock. "From the program launch in April until the end of December, we estimated we'd collect 15,000 tonnes. We actually collected 29,000 tonnes, almost double what we thought. So the residents have done a great job adjusting to the new setouts."
Peel was early into the talk game about launching into organics and really late into the real action. Politicians, led by former Ward 6 Councillor David Culham who got the blue box program launched here in the mid-80s, were discussing it long before it was ever on the horizon in Toronto. But that city actually started first.
Mind you, Peel uses a superior capture and processing method which produces higher quality compost and better revenues. That's why it was so important at the beginning to get residents to remove the non-compostable plastic from the bins, an exercise which Pollock says was largely successful.
There have been a few bumps along the way. While the $35 million Material Recycling Facility on Torbram Rd. at Highway 407 has worked well, there have been some problems with smells from the curing facility in Caledon. "We are temporarily shipping to a second party for curing as we work through those issues," says Pollock.
So how many households are actually participating in Mississauga?
A disappointing 45 per cent — not even one in every two houses.
Although Pollock says that's not far off what was anticipated at brown launch, it seems woefully inadequate when you think of the potential market.
Peel reduced the number of garbage bags picked up at the curb at no charge from three to two in the fall as an incentive to use the green bin. No appreciable difference.
Another round of encouraging ads and public education will be launched again around the pending anniversary, but somehow it doesn't seem enough.
Maybe it is going to have to take a little neighbour to neighbour counselling to get the job done.
This is a sensitive subject, needless to say, because everyone is nervous about trying to impose their values — even their virtuous green ones — on the family next door.
But next time you bump into a non-participant in your pajamas at the curb at 6:45 a.m. on garbage day, see if you can bring the conversation around to the fact that we can't reverse global warming by ourselves or negotiate a Kyoto extension, but at least we can dump our egg and shrimp shells back onto the earth, where they belong.