Food Waste; Disposal, Trash, Backyard Composting or Feeding Worms
Ever give much thought to your food scraps? All those potato peelings, bits of onion or excess from a head of cabbage? Most people just scrape the food off into the trash can or flip the switch and the disposal grinds it all up. Now is the first time in nearly 20 years that I’ve had a garbage disposal, all my post-parents places have lacked a disposal. With the exception of six months living in an 8th floor studio apartment on Lindell, I’ve had a yard for these past two decades. And in having a yard, I managed to compost nearly all my food waste — be that scraps from preparing a meal to the usual table scraps.
Now I am back in an urban setting in a multi-family building lacking a yard to compost in. Composting is great, allowing earth’s worms to come up and help out the process of breaking down matter. So what do you do in a situation where you lack the yard and earth worms? Well, you bring the worms into the home for a process known as vermicomposting. But before I get into looking at the process I plan to undertake, let’s look at the environmental implications to more conventional disposal methods — the garbage disposal to grind and send it all to the sewage treatment plant and just dumping it in the garbage for shipment off to a land fill.
The disposal is about as convenient as they come, using it to rid ourselves of meal prep scraps as well as those un-eaten bits post-dinner. Dump, turn on the water and flip the switch. Like magic it is gone. Ever think about where it goes?
The ground-up waste does NOT go back to nature’s water supply to be gobbled up by fish and other life forms. It must first pass through the sewage-treatment plant (or your septic system). This not only increases the load on our already overburdened sewage-treatment facilities, the process also removes any food value the waste might have had further down the line. (source: Grinning Planet)
So food that might help out your own garden is flushed into the sewer system, our very old and fragile sewer system, that MSD is spending Billions (yes, Billions with a B) to upgrade. MSD covers all of the city and the bulk of St. Louis County. Other parts of our 16-county region are covered under other sewer systems or are on septic. While I couldn’t find what to flush and not flush on MSD’s website I did see in other cities them asking that you not use your disposal, that food waste be placed in the trash. Which brings us to land fills.
Have you seen the massive pile of trash over in Illinois? In the news lately has been the proposed trash transfer center in South County that the Fred Weber company wants to build. Fred Weber wants to take their old quarry site to bring in trash trucks so the trash can be collected and then loaded onto larger trucks for removal. Neighbors are understandably upset. However, I wonder how many of those that are so upset bother to recycle their trash? Or to look for items with reduced packaging? Their objections would have more impact if they didn’t help contribute to the problem of trash collection and removal to a landfill.
Oh yeah, the landfill. I’ve read that responsible landfills are supposed to allow food waste to decompose but I can’t imagine how — locked up tight in the hefty bag with all the other garbage it doesn’t get any air. The reality is that what we throw away stays in a landfill basically forever. Where, we don’t exactly know. Sadly, most really don’t care.
The only green alternative for food waste is backyard composting. Layer by layer you are slowly building a wonderful fertilizer to use in your vegetable or flower garden. But say you are like me, now lacking a yard, you are not out of luck. Why? Worms can be house broken. In a well-prepared plastic or wood container in the home they can eat through your garbage — it is what they do.
Today I purchased a $5 container at Family Dollar, I’ve shredded up old paper used to pack dishes and I’m ready to start drilling holes for air circulation (proper air circulation eliminates odor you might get otherwise). I’m not going to attempt to explain the ins and outs of vermicomposting to you — I’ll leave that to the experts. Here is a fun “how to” video with a master composter:
[Note: embedded video seemed to only work well on the Mac so I have deleted it. Use the link provided to watch the video.]
This video can be found here. Barb can also be seen in two Freshtopia videos located here and here. You can get more information on vermicomposting at Wiki. The Fed’s even support the idea with their own page on the EPA website! I’ll keep you posted on the progress and any issues I may encounter along the way.
Next time you toss out the core of that organic apple that you bought at Whole Foods, after driving there in your Prius hybrid, think about how green your lifestyle really is and if you can go further.
UPDATE 11/29/07 @ 8:20pm — Ryanne and Jay managed to kill their worms after five months. Check out updates here and here. I’ve yet to start my bin yet but I am very close — still researching just the right container.
I just wrote about two of these topics (trash and vermicomposting) for the blog I write for. I teach environmental sustainability at a local high school, and we usually visit a landfill. We’ve been to the one over in Illinois by the track and the one by Pattonville High School near Earth City, and it is truly an eye-opening experience. I believe there are 14 landfills in the STL area, all of which are visited by a steady stream of garbage trucks 12 hours a day, 365 days per year. Many solid waste experts believe that as much as 80% of what is in landfills could have been reduced, reused, or recycled. For example, about half of landfill waste is paper.
You’re right about stuff not decomposing in a landfill. Landfills are basically big holes in the ground lined with layers of gravel, clay, and sand, then with a plastic-type “geotextile” (i.e. big plastic bag). Then the trash goes in. When the hole is filled, geotextile goes over the pile and ideally seals off the trash. There are two main byproducts of these trash bubbles: leachate (i.e. trash juice, filtered by sewage treatment) and methane, which is either burned off or converted to usable energy. If properly sealed, there’s no aerobic decomposition (like what would ideally be in a compost pile), only anaerobic, which is an exponentially slower process.
Composting is so easy and very beneficial if you have a garden. Home Eco has many resources for high-class composting (worm bins, tumblers, etc) or you can just make a pile in one corner of your yard.
Does this mean I will be able to buy your castings on ebay soon? Personally we try to use a backyard compost pile as much as possible but more mulch is always needed.
As you know Steve, few things are more important in establishing green life styles than decisions regarding transportation. But in regards to trash in drains, MSD has delayed needed expenditures for years and the 2004 estimate was that $3.7 billion was needed to address regulatory and infrastructure improvements. This figure will rise as Congress and the EPA will add more regulations in the years to come.
The big change in homeowners’ bills will be on how stormwater charges are calculated. Because fees are approved by trustees and not by a vote of the public, rates will increase sharply for those with large areas of imperable surfaces on their property. The trustees are appointed by Mayor Slay and County Executive Dooley
I had a really interesting discussion with someone the other day about recycling, waste disposal, and whatnot. I have yet to really research this yet, and I’ve got some questions as to how it works specifically (I can think of plenty of holes in the idea that I wonder how they address), but I think in Ireland (or maybe it was Italy… somewhere with a lot of population density in Europe, and not a lot of land to store waste…) trash trucks are equipped to measure the weight of each person’s garbage when it’s picked up. Then they charge people per pound (or whatever measurement they’re working with in Europe…) for the waste they generate. This is a really progressive idea that puts the incentive on recycling. When there’s no consequence for throwing away recyclable waste, people can get lazy. They tend not to care that they’re filling up huge masses of land with unfathomable amounts of waste. It doesn’t affect them. Now… how they deal with other people filling their garbage can with trash that’s not theirs, or how they afford the hi-tech trucks with the ability to weigh and bill EVERY single person for these services, and maintain a reasonably quick collection of everybody’s trash individually, I’m not sure, but it’s a really interesting way to incentivize people to recycle. I just recently started recycling, and it’s amazing how much stuff I was throwing away that can be reused. I might even be convinced to start up a compost like you’re advocating. I’ve got the yard for it. It’s hard to commit to all these things sometimes though. You really have to make a life changing commitment to things like this. Interesting stuff…
Ok. I checked it out a little. Here’s a link with a seemingly reasonable and comprehensive assessment of the situation. Apparently Germany is where the concept originated and it’s way more involved than what I outlined before. Interesting.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15382445.html
Steve, where are you getting your worms. Do keep us posted, and composted:)
We don’t even have to look to Europe for a better model. When I was a college student in Kirksville, MO only five years ago, they only allow households one bag of trash per week. After that, you have to buy special bags that are fairly expensive. However, you can have as many bags of recycling as you want and curbside picks it up.
Some people went around it and just took their excess trash to the dumpster, but it really encouraged people to recycle.
Linda,
You can get worms at Pauls Bait and Tackle at 4421 Chippewa.
Chris
Josh,
I made a compost pile out of scrapwood, people through wood of all sorts of sizes and types into the alley all the time. So the compost pile did not cost anything, just the deck screws to put it all together. That way I saved both leaves/kitchen waste and wood from going to the landfill.
I used 4 large wood boards as corner posts, then screwed flat boards to make 3 sides. The fourth side I made so that the wooden slats were not attached (not screwed in place) to the compost bin, but fit into slots so that they could be taken out in order to gain full access to the compost bin. My compost bin is approximately a 3 foot cube and fits neatly into the corner of my yard, I stained it the same color as the fence, so it fits in. I used mostly treated wood the people through out, though it will all eventually rot out, there is always plenty of scrap wood to replace it!
Chris
We’ve got both the “Can o’ Worms” system in the basement and a couple of full-sized Rubbermaid trash cans that we have converted to compost piles in the back yard. We’ve basically taken trash cans and drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom, on the lower 1/3 of the sides, and on the lid. Those get both the yard waste and the more ‘woody’ food waste like carrot tops, lettuce stalks, and the left over halloween pumpkins. Simple system. Seems to work pretty well. I let it build up over the summer, turn it once in the fall into another can, and then start again. The turned one should be ready to go by spring. I do sometimes stir it around a bit for air.
The worms get the table scraps, apple cores, banana peels and the like. We throw away no food scraps except meat, fat, and bones. We’ve got enough worms that I’m thinking about building another system and start collecting food scraps from the office. I like the 3 tier system of the Can o’ Worms and would like to replicate that if possible. We get a good amount of both the vermicompost and the liquid ‘worm tea.’
If everyone was to do home composting, or if the trash pickup was seperated into 3 streams (trash, food waste, recycling) and enforced, we could make a huge dent in the landfill space.
But, from what I understand the bigger issue for landfill space is construction debris. That’s still a tough one to manage.
hi there! thanks for linking to our video!
we recently updated our bin to drain better and be more long than tall.
this is helping our worm health (along with blending our food before feeding it to them).
http://ryanishungry.com/2007/09/14/vermicomposting-born-again-worm-bin/
good luck!
can’t wait to hear of your progress!
-ryanne
ryanishungry.com
We'r ed hardy outlet one of the most profession
of the coolest and latest ed hardy apparel, such as
ed hardy tee ,ed hardy bags,
ed hardy bathing suits, ed hardy shoes,
ed hardy board shorts ， don ed hardyt,ed hardy tank tops, ed hardy for women,
ed hardy swimwearand more,
ed hardy clothing. We offers a wide selection of fashion
cheap ed hardyproducts. Welcome to our shop or just enjoy browsing through our stunning collection available wholesale ed hardy in our shop.
our goal is to delight you with our distinctive collection of mindful ed hardy products while providing value and excellent service. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction and we offer only 100% satisfacted service and ed hardy products. Please feel free to contact us at any time; we are committed to your 100% customer satisfaction. If you're looking for the best service and best selection, stay right where you are and continue shopping at here is your best online choice for the reasonable prices. So why not buy your ed hardy now, I am sure they we won’t let you down.