Are you going to eat that? No?Well, let it feed the soil.

"Food accounts for about 13 percent of the nation’s trash -- it is the third largest component after paper and yard trimmings -- and about 16 percent of New York City's.

"'There’s a growing awareness of its value,' said Elizabeth Royte, the author of "Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash." 'We had a recycling revolution, now we need a composting revolution...'

"Composting does not have as big an environmental effect as recycling, Environmental Protection Agency figures show: recycling one ton of mixed paper is four times as effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as producing the same amount of compost.

"But keeping food discards out of landfills does more than twice the good of keeping mixed paper out, E.P.A. officials said, because decomposing food that is buried and cut off from air releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, at higher rates than paper. (The ventilation in composting prevents methane creation.)

"The real environmental benefits, of course, come when composting is done on a large scale. Robert Lange, the recycling director at New York’s Department of Sanitation, said the city investigated this route a few years ago, testing food scrap collection in some neighborhoods but finding it a tougher sell than recycling.

"'Most people will not store food waste in their apartment,' Mr. Lange said, adding that many worried about odors and vermin. [Well, in time, more people in the US will learn how to deal with it. Storing and disposing food waste is part of everyday life in East Asia. -- Ed.

"Still, groups that operate food scrap collection services say they have seen a marked jump in participation over the last year. The Lower East Side Ecology Center, which collects scraps at two Manhattan locations and runs its own food composting facility at East River Park, said that Saturday drop-offs to its Union Square Greenmarket location have nearly doubled, to almost 500 gallons.

"But reducing the amount of trash produced in the first place should be the highest priority, experts say. And some note people would also do better to consider what they eat and to switch away from foods like beef, the production of which is associated with high emissions of carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas."