I have been dreaming about composting for awhile now. We used to collect some of our food waste at work and our coworker took it home for the curbside pick up that is available in many areas near us. Since we have always lived in an apartment out here though we haven’t been able to dispose of our food waste in the food waste bins because they don’t offer that service for multi-unit buildings. In my effort to be a better child of the earth I wanted to compost, to reduce our demand on the waste stream, I figure why have the garbage truck drive our food waste to the dump when I can just convert it to usable goodness here. So I squeezed in this dream into 2010 so now all I am left with from my unfinished goals from a few years ago is do a pull up and learn to be a good swimmer. More to come on those, I think they may happen this year but that’s getting ahead of myself for this post. So I researched the options for composting for apartment dwellers. It seemed like my two options were worm bin or composting machine. Elliott had shared this article with me so I reviewed it including the video: http://www.goodeater.org/2010/06/18/5-step-process-for-easy-composting-in-a-small-urban-apartment/ I watched it and was generally a little excited about getting some worms and having them live in our kitchen under the sink and them eating our food scraps and then pooing out compost. However the number of steps and the part about the worms being really particular about their environment was just too much. That is when I went to craiglist and searched for a NatureMill composter and viola someone is SF was selling their used automatic compost bin. I emailed them up, offered full price, Elliott and I are so over the haggling that goes on with craiglist stuff, and we picked it up a few days later. All that this machine requires is food scraps, some sawdust or wood pellets and baking soda, oh and a plug. Ok now I do realize that I am using most likely coal generated power to compost my food, don’t think the irony of that has gone unnoticed, none-the-less I decided that this is an improvement although I haven’t done a carbon cost benefit analysis to confirm my gut hunch. So to the composting. It is really frickin cool to put in food and output dirt. I am still giddy about the coolness of this. So here is what it looks like: Food, wood pellets and baking soda in:
The machine does some mixing and some heating and then, compost:
When it gets full you dump it to a bin below. I recently filled up my first bin and now I am faced with what to do with all this rich soil. My plan is to spread it out lovingly in the planter in front of our apartment, in the 2 house plants we have, perhaps in the local parks, and then when that gets old offer it for free on craigslist to someone who hopefully has a need for it. I am also offering it for free to any of my friends or family that garden, just let me know and I will send you batch! Otherwise, watch out Oakland parks because they are going to have the best plants and grass this side of the Mississippi!
