"Is all this effort doing the planet good?"

In the New York Times: Urban Composting: A New Can of Worms. The article explains some of the unique circumstances we city folk have to deal with when it comes to composting. There are some funny stories in there. The article also asks how much good does composting do. It is no where near as helpful as recycling. That is the single best thing we can do. But it does keep trash out of landfills and finished compost is great for plants. 

For us, yes, it is a bit of work to manage Kimberly (our composter); chopping everything up, making sure there's a good balance of material we put in there, turning it…just add it to the list. But it's fun. She is our own little science experiment. 

Article written by Mireya Navarro.

NYTimes.com also has an entire section about composting.