To the Editor:

When our neighbors directly across the street first rolled their green organic composting cart out for curbside pickup one Wednesday, my initial thought was, why should I pay $65 a year for the honor — and bother — of curbside composting?

But thanks to the weekly appearance of our neighbors composting cart, I realized I was furthering a modern day version of an economic principle called the tragedy of the commons. In the 1830s, English sheep owners utilized public meadows to allow their flocks to graze — but no one paid to reseed. As a result, the commons became bare and unusable. Today, I proudly place my own composting bin out for pickup. My guilt-laden journey to composting nirvana — littered with stained pizza boxes, coffee grounds, and banana peels — may not have been pretty, but it’s one we should all take.

First, consider the potential cost savings. Collecting and transporting waste destined for landfills cost Princeton $200 a ton; curbside composting costs only $75 a ton. The savings can add up quickly. In July of 2013 alone, for example, Princeton collected 445 tons of trash destined for landfills. Of that total, approximately one-fourth was compostable. As a community, we’re literally throwing away our real estate tax dollars by failing to utilize the composting program to the maximum extent possible.

In addition to the cost savings, there are environmental benefits to composting. Compostable material recycled as fertilizer reduces the amount of organic waste buried in landfills where it produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more hazardous to the environment than carbon dioxide.

As a practical matter, the demands of composting are quite reasonable. Everything you need is dropped off at your home including the wheeled composting cart and a small container you keep in your kitchen to accumulate food waste. After a brief start-up period — Does that waxed cardboard container of Halo’s chocolate ice cream go into the compost bin or the regular trash? — the process requires no more effort than the regular trash.

Although Princeton’s was the first curbside organic waste-recycling program in New Jersey, it’s by no means the first in the nation. San Francisco has been collecting organic waste curbside since 1996 and more than 100 U.S. cities currently have curbside collection of organic waste. As a community, Princeton has the opportunity to be at the forefront of a positive, statewide environmental change. But this will only occur if all of us who can afford the $65 annual fee decide that a tragedy of the commons is not going to take place on our watch.

Mort Zachter

Lake Drive