If they tried anything, I don't think they'd have a legal leg to stand on.
With landfills being filled so quickly and cities and towns having to
transport garbage out to other areas (there are large costs associated with
that), they couldn't possibly say anything about composting in your own
backyard.

About 8 years ago, I moved to a little town (Holly Springs, NC) and started
a couple of compost bins on the side of my house. The lots were so small,
it was ridiculous (mine was .18 acre). I eventually crammed 3 compost bins
on the side of my house and created multiple gardens around my house with
flowers, perennials, veggies and herbs. Some of my neighbors would ask why
I wasted so much time putting in all my kitchen scraps and plants, etc. and
they just laughed at me. Pretty soon, they noticed how my plants and lawn
looked so much better than theirs. They kept asking if I was fertilizing
with something special. Of course, anything will grow and prosper with
homemade compost and a little fish emulsion. The two local papers came and
interviewed me about composting and organic gardening (pictures were taken).
At our subdivision pool, I was teased about being a celebrity and people
started asking me questions about composting and how hard it was. Once I
explained how easy it was, some of them actually attempted it.

We had our yearly celebration in the town park and they asked me to sit in a
booth and educate people on composting. Our town had been fighting another
landfill being pursued behind our subdivision and composting was an issue
raised. Our town purchased thousands of commercial compost bins and started
selling them for $30 and encouraging people to start composting.

There might have been 6-8' between my neighbors house and mine, but I never
had complaints or smells from them. There were times when I had them
overflowing with plants ripped out of my garden, but it breaks down very
quickly.

I moved to N. Raleigh last September and have a huge compost pile on the
back of my property. It backs up to a wooded area and then a road behind
that. I got my 1.5 acre lot to start having fun with my gardens. I'm so
excited about getting started, I could burst. Unfortunately, we've been
tackling one thing at a time (front yard was way overgrown and needed to be
cleaned up). I just finished the side yards and actually managed to get
tomatoes, peppers, rosemary, lemon thyme, lemon grass, cucumbers, green pole
beans, basil, oregano, dill, chocolate mint, sage and lavender both in the
ground and in pots on my back deck. Everything is growing nicely, but not
as robust as it used to be with my compost. Next year......

Personally, I would ignore the idiots next door and contact your local
Health Department, Waste Management, Town or City Hall and try to get some
answers on your rights to compost in your area. Good luck. You can tell
your neighbors that THEIR property might bring down the value of yours
because they aren't being very smart with recycling and our environment.

Penny
Zone 7b - North Carolina
"LoneEarth" wrote in message
...
Despite futile attempts to educate my neighbors they persist in
remaining stubbornly ignorant about composting and insist that my
compost bins, which are screened and tidy, will surely cause a
horrible stench (though they have not in the past 3 years) and result
in their back yards becoming unusable. Nothing anyone says will ever
convince them otherwise because they know what they think they know
and that is that.

My question is this: do I have a right to compost yard waste? I live
in a city with small but not tiny lots and the bins built from wood
from a very large tree we had removed are in the back of the yard
screened with lattice and various vines. I'm sure that the city has
some kind of an ordinance covering disposal of yard waste as it seems
to have an ordinance covering everything, but it seems completely
ridiculous for me to purchase a sticker (I would probably need
several- they only pick up yard waste biweekly) so that the city can
throw it in their municipal compost site and then sell it back to me
contaminated with pesticides and who knows what other chemicals. Not
to mention that if I throw everything in a garbage can and let it sit
for 2 weeks with no airflow it will start stinking for real. I'm
willing to fight the city, I just wondered if anyone had had any
experience with this.