The green-living experts tell us that the average family could reduce their garbage by as much as one-third, just by composting kitchen scraps and other organic wastes. Looking at the foot-path worn down from the house to our own compost bins, I believe that waste-reduction estimate!
The worst part of composting, for me, is the stinky old plastic ice-cream containers I keep under the sink to collect the veggie peelings and crumpled tissues and spent tea-bags.
One of these days, I’m going to brace my wallet to get a stainless steel beauty… maybe even one like this Canadian-sourced unit that mounts right in a kitchen countertop.
I’d never heard of such a thing before, but HWHTPT was drafting up a kitchen plan just last week that called for Blanco Solon’s organic waste bin to be installed right beside the prep sink. The minute I saw it… well, there’s a new entry in my Kitchen Wish List scrapbook!
Why bother, you ask?
Because of the best part of composting.
While my garden sleeps away the winter months under a blanket of snow, our coffee grounds and carrot peelings are turning into a gorgeous rich soil amendment and fertilizer that’s light-years beyond anything the garden centres have to sell in their big plastic bags.
When spring comes, I’ll scoop out the oldest compost from the bottom of the bin and run it through a wire mesh to catch the finest bits in my wheelbarrow, then use that fine dark compost to get my young seedling plants off to a wonderful start on the growing season.
Frugal, green, and productive of food and beauty… vegetable waste is turned back into yummy homegrown vegetables. In my books, that’s as close as you can get to household magic!
Technorati Tags: kitchen, composting, containers
I make the trek to my compost piles a couple times a week, winter,spring, summer and fall. I’ve been getting seed catalogs in the mail for the past few weeks and dreaming of a new flower garden this year. The compost is black gold……
Wow. That is sweet. I think I’ll stick with my ice cream buckets, though. I did at one time buy an antique enamel pot that would probably work even better than the buckets.
cool! we have been talking of composting again. We have really fallen down on that job! we need a new bin though, problems w/ rodents!
Hi Matt, good of you to comment — and thanks for the link to the compost tumbler you’re selling.
But ummm, I think you might have missed the bit where I mentioned my path between the house and the compost bins (plural)? I may not be much of a Susie Homemaker, but believe me, I don’t have a bunch of food decomposing under the sink! It goes out every day, of course.
My point here wasn’t about the style of composter unit that is the ultimate destination, but the container to collect the scraps in the kitchen, and carry them out. Plastic tubs will absorb odours — stainless steel does not. And I also liked the way that this container is integrated into the kitchen counter — easy clean up after peeling those carrots.
Whether one uses a containment type of compost bin or a tumbler style — a person still needs to collect the kitchen scraps in something!
Right?
In the winter I just put all of my scraps in my Urban Compost Tumbler, and then thaw it out in the spring. I don’t like decomposing food under my kitchen sink.