Today is garbage day for our neighborhood, so I dutifully carried out the trash this morning. I am happy to report that instead of the usual full bag of garbage that typically threatens to fall apart as it comes out of the garbage can, I had only one light bag that was about 1/2 full. What was in it? First of all, I have not trained myself to put all scraps into the compost bin, so some of it ends up in the garbage. Then there are the pesky plastic wrappers that envelope everything we buy - and the plastics that my town does not recycle. I guess I have to be more careful about the containers I purchase if I am to get closer to zero waste!
As for the compost bin, it has been taking in waste for one week and is already cooking away. We have put quite a bit of yard waste in it, and of course all our food scraps. I also tore up the cardboard box of a cheesecake we had. Let us see how long that will take to decompose.
Over the weekend, at the garden store, I found a mix that is supposed to help the compost heap get hot (thermophilic bacteria pellets). Has anyone used these? I may experiment with them, to see if things decompose faster.
After his initial enthusiasm over the bin, my four-year-old has lost all interest in the endevour. On day one, he was pulling fresh produce from the fridge to compost! I had to explain the concept of composting waste only. For about four days, he was keen on dumping the compost pail from the kitchen into the bin. A week after the initial enthusiasm, he has lost interest. He is now mastering the art of making toast (more than we can possibly eat, so more fuel for the compost bin!) Fickle is the four year old mind!!!! :-)
Have a great day everyone!
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There is yet another change in our household thanks to Sarada and Julie - we also had MUCH less trash in our bin today. Although I was almost in tears today biking to the bus stop. Not because I was tired or sore but because I got a slow drive-by of all of the trash going out of three neighborhoods on my way. SO MUCH WAS RECYCLABLE!!! I was tempted to start gathering the "easy" stuff to take home and recycle but decided that "smelly, dirty and TRASH PICKER" would not look good on my resume. It would not solve this problem, either. Give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish. . . Okay trash gurus - what next? How do we spread the word beyond this blog?
ReplyDeleteIt's just stomach-turning, isn't it, to see the trash? Worse yet, try driving around campus...for whatever reason, students often don't recycle.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to start there, I know there are efforts in EL to get students on board. Do you have a neighborhood association? Try that. I'm generally a fan of starting in our own backyards and growing organically from there.
And, FYI, I'm totally not above picking trash.
After a long talk about what I can recycle with MSU recycling we have removed our trash can from under the kitchen sink and replaced it with recycling and compost bins. I think the convenience of recycling and inconvenience of tossing something to garbage will help us recycle as much as we can.
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