Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Minimalist’s Composting: Why it’s worth it.

You may have heard that composting is a good thing because food waste that rots in our landfills and creates methane gas that adds to the greenhouse effect, but that’s a lot to take in even for a minimalist. I mean, I’m not a scientist. But, here are some other reasons why I started composting my food waste.

First of all, I cook a fair amount so I create a lot of vegetable scraps. What do I do with them? I can either put them into my garbage disposal and risk clogging it up, (what a pain!), or I can throw them into my kitchen trash bin where they will make everything else in there wet. This means I will eventually have to wash out the bin (work) or I can walk a few steps to my deck and put them into my scrap collector. It’s actually nothing more than a plastic pickle container with a top that I got for free from a pub in our neighborhood. It’s a five gallon bucket like the kind one would paint out of, so it takes a few weeks to fill it up.

Sound easy so far right? What about when it is full?

Well, we have some big wooden containers left over from when we planted some pine trees in our yard in the fall so I dump the scraps in there. Then I mix them with the leaves I raked up in the fall and whatever potting soil I have around. We have had a really cold, wet spring this year here in Portland, but it is slowly breaking down into compost.

Some people say they have trouble with wild critters getting into this stuff and I’m sure I have had a few masked bandits, (city raccoons) , help themselves. But Ox the Boxer makes her presence pretty well known in the backyard which keeps a handle on it.

2 comments:

Bonez said...

I'm learning at lot from you site and have added you to the Bonez LinX listing so others can find you and help save our planet.

Chief said...

Composting is very good for the environment. Keeping waste out of the landfill and improving your soil is a noble endeavor. I use a specially designed bin, but you can pretty much do it anywhere and nature takes over.

Tragedy of the Commons