Under the cover of darkness and quiet of night, I dropped my first load of compost!
Being able to compost to is important to me. According to an EPA study done in 2012 (most recent data available) 7.4% of household waste is food scraps… seems a little low to me... Combine that with commercial garbage and 20% of whats ending up in landfills is food waste. Composting is such an easy way to decrease my overall contribution to landfills and it really makes a difference in how much I’m persoanlly throwing “away.” Also explaining to my roommate why there’s egg shells and carrot peelings in the freezer makes me feel wicked trashy. Food scraps have the ability to have a whole other life! I can’t be so heartless as to deprive them of their decomposing potential!
In Los Angeles county every household has blue (recycling) black (landfill) and green (yard waste) bins. So, after some hard digging (that involved reading the label on the bin), I found out that fruit and vegetable waste is also acceptable in the green bin! Hallelujah! Make room in the freezer for ma compost!
I haven’t graduated to my own compost bin yet. One, because I had a pretty scarring experience in college when a MASSIVE fruit fly infestation took over my apartment for an entire summer. Two, I don’t have a garden to use the luxurious soil created from the compost! So until I’m ready to plunge into household composting, a more commercial way of composting is my best option.
**Do you have an organization that collects food scraps in your hometown? Does your town allow food scraps in yard waste? Try asking farmers at your farmers market if they collect household food waste for their farms! Go on! Send your food scraps off to live out their life!
Straight Trash Talk 