Stick a fork in it; House composting program done

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Administration Committee, announced Monday that he was ordering the chamber’s composting program to be suspended after concluding that it cost too much and wasted too much energy.

The problem, staffers from both parties have grumbled, is that the forks break, the spoons melt and the knives don’t cut much more than a soft piece of bread. And the trash cans were replaced with a bewildering array of recycling bins that few have mastered.

That’s not why Lungren ended the program, though. He concluded that, in addition to costing $475,000 per year, it “also increased the House’s energy consumption through the use of additional electricity for the pulping process and the increased hauling distance to the composting facility.” And according to the House Inspector General, the “the program has only achieved carbon reductions equivalent to removing one car from the road each year.” Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com