Curbside pickup of kitchen scraps and other compostables is an important service to provide for those who can't compost in the backyard. It's upsides are that removing all of a community's compostables from the waste stream can reduce the amount of trash headed to the landfill by 30% or more, and meat scraps that can be problematic for backyard composting can be included in the curbside bin.
But even when such programs are offered, backyard composting remains the most ecological approach for those who can, because it removes the energy-intensive mechanized chain of transport/composting/redistribution that comes with curbside pickup. And there's all that rich compost ready for use at the bottom of the pile.
I've been very happy with our decision to put our compost bin right outside our kitchen door. That way we don't even need to collect scraps in a bucket--we can just toss them straight out the door and into the bin each time we prepare a meal. You might expect odor to be a problem with the bin so close to the house, but in four years we've only had a noticeable odor once or twice, and all it took to fix it was a bit more "brown" material. (I toss in shredded paper if I have nothing else handy.)
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