EHI Quick Tip: Collect Compostables Indoors

By Wesley Joseph • Sep 7th, 2008 • Category: Gardening, Recent Posts, Resource Waste Reduction

Stumble It :: :: Subscribe via Email :: Subscribe via RSS

So you have taken the plunge and taken the advice of many extolling the environmental virtues of composting, such as replenishing needed nutrients to the soil in your own community (rather than filling up landfills with otherwise useful organic matter.

That’s great!  But how often do you have a very small item for the compost and feel it is too much to stop making your meal to take that one peel out to the compost heap?  My guess is that it is too much to take every scrap piecemeal (no pun intended) to your compost pile, but maybe you have adapted to that situation by collecting compostables in a container until day’s end.  But who wants to have to remember to take it outside everyday or face the smell sitting right there on your counter?

So maybe those coffee grounds end up in the garbage from time to time?  Not a big deal, right?  Not a big deal?  Well, sure, there will be times when composting doesn’t happen for whatever reason.  But composting is a big deal considering that synthetic fertlizers are used to replinish our lands of necessary nutrients when it becomes depleted (among other reasons) and I have a simple method so that you don’t have to take every bit of compostable matter outside separately.  

All that organic matter paid to have that organic matter shipped our way and now we’re going to have a gas guzzling (er, diessel drinking) garbage truck haul it away and mix it with inorganic, toxic materials?  Make sense to you?  It’s needed in your own backyard!

So, for that Quick Tip: Simply, put an old butter container (preferably a larger one) or a coffee can into the refrigerator or freezer and put your banana peel, coffee grounds, tea bags, crushed egg shells, and other matter into the container as it is produced.  When it is full, take it out and leave it on the counter for thirty minutes as it thaws loose from the sides of the container.  Then, take it outside and bury the block of ice under some leaves, sticks, and green matter to avoid pests from picking at any food remnants.

If you need the room in your freezer, then keep it in the refrigerator until more room is available.  It’s that easy!  And it helps you to save energy by keeping your refrigerator or freezer stocked.

Stumble It :: :: Subscribe via Email :: Subscribe via RSS

Wesley Joseph is the primary editor for EHI. He comes from a strong political science background and is interested in the effect humans' actions have on the environment, how in turn the environment affects humans, and how environmental policy at large and personal actions can both change into positive envirohuman impacts.
Email this author | All posts by Wesley Joseph

Leave a Reply