Composting is easier than I thought...

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a little while know I hesitantly started composting. My intention was to vermicompost (composting with worms) but I never got around to getting the worms.

Surprisingly (to me at least), it seems to work pretty well, even without the worms. What I've learned from my reading is that the worms speed up the process. When I emptied our kitchen compost container into the bigger Rubbermaid container in the back today, I was surprised that most of it was brown and squishy (I'll spare you the pictures). The only recognizable stuff was some newspaper shreddings and a couple corn husks.

I think one of the things that helped the composting on its way was making sure I had a balance of things: browns (carbon rich materials) and greens (nitrogen rich materials). That, and stirring it around to get oxygen in, has made a lot of difference.

A great website is Compost Guide. There are all kinds of instructions and even a troubleshooting guide.

My advice to those considering composting...it's not as difficult as you'd think (and not as stinky!)...give it a try!

Trash update!

I've been doing the Enviromom Challenge, trying to get to one can of trash a month. I'm surprised...since we started composting and continued our regular recycling, we have managed to have probably 1 and a 1/2 cans a month. I didn't think we'd even get down to two cans! So to celebrate our reduced trash (and to make more space in our kitchen), I got a smaller, pull out trash can that goes under the sink.

The composting is working, but going slow since we're doing it worm-free (for now). I was afraid what our little compost bin would look/smell like when we got back after a week at the beach, but I was pleasantly surprised. The last thing I put in there was corn husks, and it smelled like...cornhusks!

In other exciting (probably only to me!) news, we got our Pur water dispenser for the fridge. Yay! Between that and our iced tea maker, we'll be avoiding a lot of the prepackaged beverage bottles.

Has anyone else been doing the Enviromom trash challenge?

A Trashy Post

Catchy title, eh? Sorry, though, this is just a G-rated post about my garbage. I've been very conscious of our trash production since the Enviromom challenge of 1 can a month. After one week...well so far we have about 1/4 can filled! Could it be we might succeed? I'm excited about my trash (or lack thereof). Yay!

And I found out today that my trash collectors now take recyclables 1-7 !!! Woo-hoo! Previously, they had taken 1-3 only.

I think our compost container is helping. We haven't gotten worms yet but we're composting without for now. I read that I should have used a dark container (not clear) because it works better away from light, but since I had already drilled the holes in it, we just decided to keep it under the deck where it's dark.

So the plastic recycling goes in the recycling bin, paper in the paper bin, food scraps (like banana peels and eggshells) go to the compost bin and what's left for our monthly trash challenge is pretty much just stuff like granola bar wrappers and milk cartons.

This really gives me a sense of accomplishment...When we save electricity, a smaller bill is great, don't get me wrong, but actually seeing a physical difference in our trash is pretty cool, and not as hard as I thought!

Enviromom's Challenge

This is going to be a tough one for my family!

Enviromom is challenging us to produce no more than one can of trash per month (see banner on the sidebar for a link). Wow, that is REALLY a challenge.

I am guessing right now we make about 6-7 cans of trash a month. Maybe 5 at the best. So how can we possibly get the trash to be that much less? Here's my plan:

BUYING/NOT BUYING
I think it starts with buying. My family needs to buy food with less packaging. This can be done by buying in bulk (more food, less waste), choosing a better packaged product over another, or just NOT buying. We no longer buy individual yogurts because nowhere around here recycles anything above a #3. One of the big obstacles is going to be Jack's fruit snacks. I'm not a big fan of small packages inside bigger packages because that's extra trash, but he LOVES them. Anyone have any ideas for tasty, easy, little kid snacks that I can replace the fruit snacks with?

RECYCLING
We're a real recycling family but I have to admit, there are some things that might not make it to the recycling bins. For some reason, toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls always seem to end up in the trash instead of paper recycling. Why? Who knows...maybe some kind of mental block because they aren't flat like paper? So I'll be on the lookout for any recyclable paper products that may have been preciously overlooked.

REUSING
The packaging we haven't yet eliminated (like the large yogurt containers) we wash and reuse for storage of little doodads. I also have given some away on freecycle. And I am eventually going to get around to making yogurt so we don't have those containers.

COMPOSTING
After watching the composting video on youtube, I'm excited to do it. I need to find red wiggler worms, though. Any Harford County readers out there who know where I can get some? So when I get the worms, we're going to start this. For some reason I am kind of nervous about it...I hope it works!

So we do have room for a lot of improvement. I am fairly sure we will NOT reduce to 1 can a month, but we can improve...that's an important thing to note: you don't have to be the perfect, all or nothing green person. Anything you do, as small as it may be, helps!

Wa$ted on Planet Green and Composting

So earlier this week our cable was finally fixed (after about 2 weeks) so I was able to check out the new Planet Green channel. It seems pretty cool...I've really only watched "Wa$ted" and thought it was pretty good.


The show's premise is similar to home makeover shows, except it's an "eco-footprint" make over. The hosts visit homeowners, look at how they currently live and then give suggestions how to reduce their eco-footprint by the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle).

In general, a lot of the "green news" that's coming out is kinda old news, so I didn't think I'd hear anything new...but was pleasantly surprised. One of the things I found out was that you can compost without a huge compost bin in your back yard.

My sister and I were going to go to a composting workshop (we're ecogeeks I guess) but were unable to go since it was the same weekend as Penn State's Blue White game. So composting has been on the back burner until I saw Wa$ted the other day.

Anyway, I did a little searching on the Internet and found this great video on home composting that's simple to understand and easy to do. Check it out.

This is my next project after our epic yard sale this Saturday!