My waste reduction resolution

Hi Everyone!

Kim, thanks for letting me contribute to your blog! For those of you who don't know me, I am a friend of Kim's from Oak Park, IL. We now live in Minnesota, the land of ten thousand lakes - there is indeed a lake in every corner! We love it here so far, inspite of the frigid winters.

When I heard about Kim's resolution to give up her car for a month, I started thinking about what I could do to be a little more earth friendly. I am a vegetarian, and I try to consume things that are locally grown when possible. I drive a Prius, so at least it is not a gas guzzler. My challenge is to reduce the amount of waste we generate. I would like to get this as close to zero as possible.

Looking at our garbage can for a few weeks, I noticed that the bulk of what we throw is organic waste - vegetable peels, apple cores, tea leaves, left over cereal... I am a zealous recycler, so most plastic, glass and metal gets recycled. So I knew that to reduce the waste we throw out, we had to deal with the organic waste.

Yesterday, I took the first step towards this goal by making a compost bin for our house. I have always wanted a tumbling compost bin, but purchasing one of these can cost hundreds of dollars. I firmly believe being green should be affordable for all, so I built a tumbing composter for about $15, using a 20 gallon garbage pail with a locking lid and a bungee cord. I used an electric drill to create some ventillation (a rows of holes about 6 inches apart). The whole project took about two hours. Let me add that I am NOT a handy person, so if I can build a compost bin, almost anyone can!

My four year old son was delighted to see our new compost bin when he came back from pre-school! He helped me throw in some yard waste, a rotting head of lettuce and tea leaves into the mix. We then built a little watering can for him, by punching holes into the screw top of a juice bottle, and he spent time watering the mix to keep it moist. He also proceeded to water our windows, deck and any plant he could find! We then fastened the bungee cord to the lid (to make sure nothing falls out) and then kicked the bin around the yard to get it mixed and aired out.

For those of you unfamiliar with the science of composting, the idea is that the organic wastes are broken down by microbes and other bugs, to create compost. The bugs do the work, our job is to keep the pile watered and to mixed things up so air can get in and speed up decomposition. The end product is a beautiful earthy material that crumbles in your hands. It looks quite similar to soil, and can be used in the garden to grow plants or fill in low spots on the lawn. If done right, the pile will not smell or attract any nuisance animals (i.e. roedents). The hotter the your compost gets, the more quickly things decompose. The heat also kills any weed seeds in the compost, so that they don't show up in your vegetable patch next year.

So many things can go into a compost bin! Food scraps (except meat and dairy), old cardboard (make sure it is not plastified) that is ripped into little pieces, yard waste, and even the occasional paper towel (without any cleaners on it of course!).

For those of you contemplating a compost bin, I say just go for it! Its just using the bugs that are already out there to decompose our waste using fresh air. It is not rocket science, and you can tweak your system to get it working just right! If you have a large yard, you can simply start a pile in a corner, and encircle it with some wire to keep it contained. Or, you can build one like I did, with a garbage can - so have fun with it! In Sarah Palin's unforgetable words - drill, baby, drill! :-)