Composting



An embarrassing story:

One of the first things we noticed upon our arrival to this house was the EXTREMELY small trash barrel. And the fact that there was only 1 of them. Plus a few assorted containers for recycling and yard debris.

This was shocking because at our other house, we had 2 GINORMOUS barrels and we stuffed those puppies to the gills every single week. I'm afraid to say that despite our efforts to reduce packaging, yada, yada--we were definitely doing our part to furnish the landfills. And this was with us taking our glass and aluminum to the recycling center.

So here we are with our with 1 barrel, roughly the size of our kitchen trash can--which we literally emptied every day. Serious panic time. And we ask the neighbors what the recycling system is and how on earth people get by with such little trash bins--even if they do recycle. Jen, our neighbor, looks at us with a dubious look, explaining that ours is even the 'large' barrel and that it's really no problem for most people. I doubted.

But I am AMAZED to report that it is TRULY incredible, how much less trash you have if you both recycle and compost. INCREDIBLE, I tell you. The homeowners already had one of those compost bins hidden behind the garage, so we just bought a countertop composter (shown below), which we fill with all organic materials (food scraps (coffee grinds, eggshells, etc., but not meat or dairy), Audrey's diapers (one of the kinds we use is compostable), and so on.) Then with the paper, glass, aluminum and plastic in the recycling bins, to my shock and awe--we don't even fill up the 1 trash can every week!



May be it's just me, but to think that at least 75% of the stuff I was putting into my trashcans could have gone elsewhere, is mind-boggling. WOW. I am especially amazed by the amount of compostable stuff and paper we generate.

(The counter-top compost pail is just an interim stop so that you don't constantly have to run outside. It's really just a pail with a charcoal filter in the lid to eliminate odor.) And that compost is going to make incredibly fertile hummus--so just watch and see as the Darth-Vader of gardening turns back to to the light.)