Becoming a Urban Composter

It's been over a decade since I began studying the relationship of nutrition to the mind and body. As with all things, it continues to be a process. There are many aspects in my present routines that I was either not aware of or not ready for a few years ago.

Connecting to a natural way of eating has made me more environmentally respectful. I recycle, drive a hybrid, reuse plastic bags, carry around my reusable shopping bags, and look for biodegradable products as much as possible.

And yet, just as with the process of nutrition, there are things I have been willing to overlook.

Living in the city, I never bothered with composting. I mistakenly figured that as long as I was using organic materials, they would all decompose, even in a landfill.

Landfills provide ideal conditions for the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. It is 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is created when organic materials (such as yard waste, household waste, food waste, and paper) decompose under anaerobic conditions (i.e., in the absence of oxygen.) Food that is mixed in with non-decomposable trash is estimated to make up about 40% of the trash in landfills and is the biggest offender in creating landfill methane.

Locally, our cities only pick up vegetative waste from our yard. Cities such as San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toronto, and Boulder all have programs in place that allow residents to place food scraps curbside to be turned into compost.

By properly composting their kitchen waste, rather than having it transported to a landfill site, individuals can ensure that, as the waste decomposes, it forms carbon dioxide, rather than methane, and so has less of a greenhouse gas impact.

Cambridge offers its residents the option to drop off food scraps for compost at the recycling center.
 Cooking as often as I do, in the last couple of months I have been freezing my vegetable scraps and taking a monthly trip to the recycling center.

Living in the city, I grow my vegetables in boxes as I don’t have much of a backyard. I’ve always wondered where I would put a compost bin?!

The most popular urban solution seems to be red worm composting. I now keep a sealed container with red worms into which I toss my food scraps instead of into the trash. The worms feed off the scraps and all my received junk mail and turn it into compost. Hassle free.

If you are thinking you’d never bring a box of worms home, I thought the same. But these little ones are a private bunch and keep to themselves buried under the scraps. I actually find myself wanting to see them when I open the container. Its like having 1001 pets! I have 1000 worms and 1 cat.

Since I stopped throwing out food waste (first freezing and taking it to the compost center and now using worms,) in an entire month I have had nothing but one small kitchen-sized trash bin to put out on the curb.


Resources: 

Cambridge Recycling Center
Building a worm compost bin: the cliff notes

The commercial made compost bin I purchased (This way I never have to deal with cleaning the bin or sorting the soil from worms)  
Everything you need to know about red worm composting 
Red Worm Purchase (it is not recommended to get less than 1000 to start)

* Some cities run non-profits where compost is picked up from your home. Here is an example of Somerville’s SoilCycle Program

* Most cities have inexpensive home composting systems for sale. Find out more on your city’s official website.