There are more than 10,000 households out there plunking down $33 to $45 a month to use the United States Postal Service to ship food waste.

That is after departing with around $300 for a device that dehydrates food waste overnight.

In doing so, it removes odor and water making it possible to accumulate food waste grinds.

The grinds, when a certain amount is reached, is then shipped in a prepaid box to the San Bruno-based company south of San Francisco.

If you think forking over $300 a month for a device then paying upwards of $45 a month for a subscription service to ship dehydrated food waste isn’t chicken feed, you’re wrong.

It’s because Mill, the San Bruno firm behind the monthly subscription service to repurpose postal trucks as garbage trucks, is then able to sell the food waste grounds as an ingredient to produce chicken feed.

If it sounds insane, it is.

What is insane about it is how cavalier most of us are when it comes to generating food waste, items for recycling, and — for want of a better term — reducing our garbage footprint.

Californians generate 6.7 pounds per capita daily in garbage that is buried at landfills in state and out-of-state.

The CalRecycle rate is based on 42 million tons annually of solid waste being buried. And that’s after 37 percent of all solid waste we generate in the Golden State is recycled.

Keep in mind what we toss in carts — and assuming it is done properly by following basic rules — is just a part of what is buried.

There is commercial waste and industrial waste.

And it just doesn’t end there.

Just three of the City of Manteca’s four inaugural annual drop off solid waste events limited to pick-up size loads of debris from households in specific council areas have yielded 50 tons so far.

Then there are the truckloads of trash hauled to the Lovelace Transfer Station just north of Manteca on top of what comes by garbage trucks.

It includes those cleaning out garages, yards or remodeling debris using pickups and U-Haul style trucks.

There is also a small cottage industry of trash haulers who do contract to haul debris away.

Large waste generators such as construction companies by law divert from the landfill what can be recycled.

Such concerns populate the category of the best recyclers in California as they are large and under a focused regulatory spotlight.

The rest of us as a group — think consumers/households — are less stellar at recycling than we think we are.

Which brings us back to those who pay more than chicken feed to the San Bruno firm.

Mill has the most precise hard data on food waste ever collected.

The company in June reported on data collected from their “subscriber” base between April 2023 and May 2024.

The median Mill household generated 5.5 pounds of food waste per week.

Over the first four months, data showed households reduced food waste by 20 percent and then stabilized right around that level going forward.

Seven percent of households ended up not putting any food waste into municipal collection systems.

It represents food waste that can’t be processed by Mill such as large bones and extra moldy food.

Once people realize how much food they are wasting, they pay more attention to trying not to waste it.

Mill used federal figures that estimate a typical American household wastes $1,900 worth of food a year.

The 20 percent reduction translates into an annual savings of $380.

That’s not quite enough to pay for the subscription service, but then that isn’t the point.

Food waste accounts for 58 percent of the methane gas landfills generate.

Landfills are the third largest sources of methane.

The top three source of manmade methane gas are in the following sectors: agriculture (40 percent), fossil fuels (35%), and solid waste (20%).

That is the science behind state mandates that the City of Manteca is in the process of implementing with its switch to almost universal 96-gallon carts for organics (food waste/solid waste), recycling, and garbage with weekly collections of all three carts.

The residential food waste and yard green waste will continue to go where they are now — composting facilities to create compost.

Manteca has been working on securing vendors that will take a more robust number of materials from its household collection to recycle once they get everyone switched out to 96-gallon blue carts.

The problem is people were using the blue carts that are currently collected every two weeks for overflow garbage from the brown carts collected weekly.

A good share of the violators had 64-gallon garbage carts or were producing more garbage than a 96-gallon brown cart could handle.

By going to weekly collections of the blue and green carts as well, it allows more robust recycling which in turn reduces what is currently being tossed in the brown carts.

The weekly 96-gallon green cart pickup will reduce the potential for food waste odors.

It also will effectively double the amount of green waste a household can dispose of during the course of the year.

This will allow many with a second cart they are currently charged $30 a month to drop back down to one.

And for others it would afford them the ability to get rid of yard waste in a timely manner instead of allowing it to pile up.

At the same time, we have a much larger solid waste footprint than we believe.

All of the stuff that you once had a need for, or at least thought you did, and crammed into the free-standing — or attached — junk room once built for the purpose of housing a vehicle eventually ends up at a transfer station.

From there, much of it is landfilled.

Complain, if you must, about garbage rates but it is the price we pay for not consciously working to reduce our solid waste footprints.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com