Compost Fun
Making kitchen scraps groovy since 5000BC
Last weekend, my sister Sonja and her family visited upstate New York. We took them to Thousand Islands to kayak and then I took her on a tour of my compost bin! YEAH!
I began composting in 2014–when the California house I moved into had a bin like the one above. I was nervous about getting started and so I took a free workshop offered by the city of Riverside. Turns out, composting is relatively easy.
Compost = Green Waste + Brown Waste + Time + Water + Maybe turning with a fork.
I saved my kitchen scraps in a bucket under the sink (that’s the Green Waste) and carried them out to the bin a couple times a week. (And really, it doesn’t smell.) Then, I added in my Brown Waste—that’s the dried grass or shredded office paper or torn up pizza boxes or dried leaves. I watered the pile on occasion and turned the whole thing with a pitch fork. You don’t have to turn the pile, but it’s fun and moves the process along.
I started composting as a new mom and it was fantastic to think about something besides nap schedules and diaper rashes and finding childcare. Also, parenting was so complicated and composting was so easy and the rewards were immediate. I fell in love—with my baby, of course—but also with this magical thing that turned kitchen scraps and slimy greenbeans into something as wholesome as dirt.
After we moved to New York, I researched compost options. There were an overwhelming amount of compost systems, but I just liked my Riverside setup so well that I tried to replicate it. This bin was my splurge, but there are plenty of cheaper options.
Personal Action: Start Composting
Why it matters:
28% of the waste that is in landfills could be composted
If everyone in the U.S. composted, it would have the same benefit as removing 7.8 million cars from the road 1
What if composting feels like too much work or money?
You can make it simplier. The New York Times had this great piece titled "I Saved 2,000 Pounds of Food Waste from the Landfill With This Simple Composter." The compost bin was the Redmon Green Culture 65 Gallon Compost Bin, and the author made the point that he was composting for the environment, not for the finished product and so he was putting as little effort into this as possible, thank you very much. But voila! "Despite my worst intentions," he wrote, "it seems I've made compost after all."
Public Action: Talk to someone about climate change
The news reports this week have been brutal. Check in with someone important to you and share with them about how you’re feeling about climate change. Maybe together you can make a plan to change systems. Maybe you become GOTV buddies or call your rep buddies. Or maybe, you become composting buddies! You have a lot of influence. I learned the term “climate shadow” several months ago and I think about it from time to time. It’s when your influence on protecting the environment extends beyond yourself. When I consider all the people who care about the enviroment and what their shadows can do, I get excited.
If you liked this issue of Cool It, share it with a friend.
These two stats come from the Environmental Resilience Institute