Saturday Short Subjects: A Tale of Kitchen Scraps, a Wedding Ring, and a Carrot

Many times have I sung the praises of compost, “black gold” to the gardener. I have urged you to set up a backyard compost bin — as a way of making your own nutrient-rich soil amendment while diverting huge amounts of material from the municipal waste stream.

For today’s Saturday Short I offer up a surprising additional reason to compost your kitchen scraps. Click here if you missed the earlier link. [Shared by Jude Hsiang in the CT Master Gardener email list.] 

Need a spring project? Now might be a good time to get a compost bin started. The Cornell University Waste Management Institute has compiled an extensive collection of resources for the home composter, including this 15 minute video:

Yes, I realize the video is a bit old. The hairstyles, music and clothing are dated, but the content is great. In just a few minutes you will learn the chemistry of composting, how to set up a bin, how to achieve balance in your pile, and remedies to common problems. To date there have only been 252 views. Help this video go viral!

If you live in the city and are concerned about pests, check out this resource sheet outlining ways to “nuisance proof your compost” bin. 

You've got no excuses now! Ready, set, compost!

The sun is out and yesterday’s snow is melting. Yay!

Have a great weekend.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

On My Radar 9.10.11

It’s been a busy month in New England with an earthquake (for which I was absent) and Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. I’ve been remiss in reporting a number of important pieces of news. Here are some of the items on my radar.

The WRATH of IRENE:

• No one in the northeast is likely to describe this storm as “over-rated.” While it is true that downtown New Haven survived the storm with minor loss of tree limbs and without any power outages, this was the exception rather than the rule. The city as a whole lost 1,250 trees, storm damage was estimated at $13 million, and some sections were without power for nearly a week. Still, there were no homes or lives lost due to the storm. Such was not the case in the adjoining town of East Haven, where a number of houses washed into the sea. Coastal damage was severe — with extensive beach erosion and property damage statewide, due in part to the astronomical high tide which coincided with the storm’s arrival. So busy were we CT residents focusing on our own woes that it was not until the next day that we learned of the devastation in the Catskills and the state of Vermont. 

GOING GREEN is GOOD for the BOTTOM LINE

• The wind turbine at Phoenix Press kept on turning through most of the storm. The turbine, which automatically shuts down for safety if the wind is more than 60 mph, only did so once over the weekend. Phoenix Press was able to put power back onto the grid during the storm, generating 2,500 kilowatts of power during Irene’s 48-hour visit — more than four times the amount generated normally.

• The Devil’s Gear Bike Shop, sponsor of many local cycling events, was recently named one of the top 100 bike stores in the country by Bicycling Magazine.

• Ecovative Design, LLC, a small company on which I reported on May 30 of last year, recently received the Dupont Diamond Award for its biodegradable mushroom packaging. Ecovative produces home-compostable and cost-competitive replacements for conventional packaging foams using mycelium, or "mushroom roots," as a self-assembling glue. In a June 13 press release the company announced an equity investment by 3M, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the DOEN Foundation. Ecovative's technology has broad applications beyond packaging including insulation, building products, automotive, and consumer goods. The company's Mushroom® packaging, EcoCradle™, is currently used by a number of Fortune 500 clients. Ecovative operates a pilot production facility in upstate New York, and plans to expand to new regional manufacturing facilities in the United States. Ecovative now has an online store featuring a variety of “fun stuff” made from mushroom mycelium, all very green, and some purported to make great wedding gifts. 

NEWS from ALL OVER:

• Gus Speth, former Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Justin Haaheim, lead organizer of Act New Haven, were among the over 1,252 arrested in Washington, DC in a two-week protest over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1700 hundred mile pipeline carrying the fossil fuel diluted bitumen that would run from Alberta, Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. 

• The state of Connecticut passed a bill which will go into effect on October 1 requiring all businesses that generate over 104 tons of “source-separated organic material” (food scraps, food processing residue and more) annually to compost them.

• In Sacramento, a measure that would have banned expanded polystyrene takeout packaging in California has been shelved without a vote in the state Assembly. Senate Bill 568, which passed the Senate in May and would have gone into effect statewide Jan. 1, 2016, would have applied to PS cups, bowls, trays, containers and clamshells. It would have been the first statewide ban on PS packaging in the U.S. The bill was placed in the inactive file Sept. 8, meaning it could surface again in 2012.

• In response to recent crop failures, women farmers in Nepal have been discarding imported hybrid seeds and husbanding hardier local varieties in cooperative seed banks. 

• The Google Green Grocer program offers Googlers in Mountain View the opportunity to  order the same high-quality, sustainably sourced seafood, meat and eggs they already enjoy in Google cafes, while supporting local community fisheries and farms.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

• The Elm City Market has now pushed back its opening to October. At the end of August 625 people had signed on as members.

• Officials including Gov. Malloy and DEEP Commissioner Dan Esty met with developer Bruce Becker at 360 State Street late in August in the hopes that the way can be smoothed for a fuel cell metering request so that the building can meter and charge its tenants for the fuel cell power they consume. 360 State’s fuel cell is currently operating at only 55 to 60 percent of capacity, powering only the building’s common areas—corridors and lobbies. 

• New Haven’s Apple Store is rising on Broadway.

• I was deeply saddened to learn that Chris Sanseverino, former chef at Caseus and West Hills alum, died on September 2. Donations can be made to Slow Food CT in Chris’s name. See his obituary for details. 

SPECIAL EVENTS:

September 11

Anniversary and Commemoration of 9|11

New Haven’s bells, including the Yale Carillon and the one at United Church on the Green, will toll city-wide at 1 pm for precisely 1 minute.

September 17

Slow Food’s $5 Challenge 

Take back the 'value meal' by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person.

September 21

5% Day at Whole Foods in Milford 

Whole Foods in Milford will donate 5% of all sales to benefit New Haven’s Common Ground High School. 

September 24

Moving Planet 

Moving Planet is a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis. At the 350CT event people will come to the New Haven Green via bikes, on foot, carpools, mass transit, anything and everything BUT carbon-intensive travel, for a central celebration with tables, music speakers, art, and a bike-powered outdoor screening of the movie Wall-E! Awesome!

BLOG NEWS

I STILL need a reader in Mississippi. Someone must know someone there.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and please come back soon.

You Too Can Make Black Gold

As it says on the back of the truck belonging to the Rainbow Recyclers in New Haven, “Compost becomes the Earth.”  Put simply, composting is a way to recycle most of your kitchen scraps and yard debris into rich, black humus that will make your garden thrive. Composting occurs naturally whenever something once living falls to the ground and slowly decays, eventually becoming a source of  minerals and nutrients to feed new life.

In the last post you learned of the tons of compost we have generated in our backyard composting bin. Now I’ll divulge the simple ingredients and equipment you will need to make your own “Black Gold.” If you garden at all, your investment of little time and money for equipment will really pay off. Note the price for just one cubic foot of compost, bagged commercially under the Black Gold name.

What you will be doing in your backyard composting bin is accelerating and controlling the natural process. You will be layering your kitchen scraps and yard waste with other organic materials in such a way that decomposition happens quickly, generating enough heat to destroy pathogens and weed seeds that would otherwise not be destroyed.

Don’t panic. I promise this is not as complicated as it sounds.

The first piece of equipment you will need is a composting bin. My recommendation for urban and suburban dwellers is one with a top as well as sides, to discourage raccoons and rodents from helping themselves to your discards or making a nest in the nice, cozy pile. The model shown above is much like the one we purchased in 1988; ours is still good as new. Composting bins come in a wide range of types and prices. Ours falls into the average price category; I show a high-end model on the left. A handy guide, Home Composting Made Easy, can help you with your selection. If you are ambitious, you can even build your own system. Just a little googling will uncover numerous links to assist you.

Backyard composting is an aerobic process (requiring oxygen). You will need to turn your compost weekly to supply air to the microbes who will be doing the work of decomposition. A turning tool or "aerator" will be a great aid. We have one of these, too.

Skip the cute kitchen scrap container. A juice or milk carton kept in the fridge until it is full will work just fine.

You will also need to learn what you can and can’t put into your compost bin. The process for home composting is different from that of municipal composting; the temperatures generated in the process are lower. You have to be more careful about what materials you use. Most food scraps are OK, but NOT dairy, meat, fish, or bones, which decompose slowly and smell, attracting vermin. If you check the EPA’s list you will find that tea bags, coffee grounds, dryer lint, and hair are also on the good list. Other definite NOs include diseased plants, charcoal, and kitty litter. According to Home Composting Made Easy, manure from cudchewers (cows, sheep, llamas…), chickens, and rabbits is great, but you should NOT add any from cats or dogs, and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you ever add your own. The risk of pathogens is simply too great.

Now all that’s left is to get your compost started. There are numerous websites that explain the basics. But the aforementioned Home Composting Made Easy is a concise, inexpensive volume that contains all that you need to know in one handy place. It’s a bargain and is endorsed by a number of agricultural extension services. I purchased mine at a workshop at the Connecticut Agricultural Extension Service on what makes good dirt. For a mere $3.95, “Professor Rot” will take you through the process of making compost, step-by-step, from selecting the right kind of composting system for your yard to achieving the perfect balance in your materials. You need the right proportion of green material (fresher and higher in nitrogen, think lettuce leaves) to brown material (drier and higher in carbon, think sawdust). Professor Rot can guide you to achieving compost perfection. You really should buy this book.

At the conclusion of the guide, Mrs. Rot explains the brewing of “compost tea,” which involves steeping some of your excellent compost, filtering it, and then diluting it to become a nutrient-rich beverage for your plants.

If you follow the advice of the Rots (or a Composting 101 link), you will have have significantly reduced your household’s municipal waste stream while improving the quality of life in your yard and garden.

If you decide you want to take your composting expertise to a higher level, there are numerous books that can take you there. Teaming with Microbes looks promising.

Soon you’ll be able to tell all your friends, “Hey, I made that dirt!”

There's Gold in those Kitchen Scraps (or At Least Some Serious Green)

In the spring of 1988 we bought a 3’ x 3’ x 3’ compost bin from Burpee’s. Over the following 22 years we have added to it at least three, 64 oz. milk/juice cartons of compostable material every week: coffee grounds, tea bags, houseplant clippings, egg shells, vegetable peels and apple cores… That’s 3,432 cartons. With each weighing in at three pounds (conservatively), that’s 10,296 pounds, or 5.15 tons of material we have kept out of the municipal waste stream! These figures only reflect the household waste we have put into our composter. They do NOT include any of the leaves and grass we have added to it, or the yard waste we have brown bagged, or branches we have tied and left on the curb.

Let’s imagine what that number could be if everyone in New Haven did the same. If each of the 47,000 households in the City would compost just 9 pounds of household waste a week, as we do, there would be 423,000 pounds less trash each week. According to the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of the City of New Haven, it costs the City of New Haven $80.40 to transport and dispose of each ton of waste it collects. That 423,000 pounds removed from the stream would mean a weekly savings of over $17,000, and a yearly savings of over $884,000 to the City. That is a pretty good chunk of change.

And, just as there are economic incentives for the City to encourage home composting, there are also economic incentives for gardeners to take up the practice. Let’s return to our 3,432 cartons of kitchen scraps. With top soil selling at ~$7.00 per 40 lb bag, these scraps have a monetary value of over $1800. Come back later this week and I will explain how easy it is to get started.

But, if you are not a gardener, or you do not have a yard, you might not want to compost at home. That is where municipal composting comes in. Municipal composting is a program where residents put their compostable material into a special container collected for composting rather than disposal. This may sound like a pipe dream, since New Haven is still gearing up for a new single-stream recycling program. And composting is not part of the plan.

But San Francisco has made the program work. Last Spring when I was riding through San Francisco on the Muni, I could not help but notice that there were three different containers on the curb, each a different color. It should be no surprise that I have Googled for more information and I am now able to tell the story.

What I was witnessing was San Francisco’s newly instituted “Fantastic Three” program. This innovative residential curbside collection program includes separate collection and composting of mixed organic materials (all food scraps, food-soiled paper, and yard trimmings). The blue container (recyclables) and the green one (compostables) are collected at no charge. There is a monthly fee for collection of the black one (trash). The charge for the standard 32-gal container is $25.48, but for those who can contain their trash to a 20-gal “mini-can,” the fee is reduced to $19.62. Last March the program was still voluntary, but on June 23, it became law. The City of San Francisco has set the ambitious goal of diverting 75 percent of waste generated in the city away from landfill disposal by 2010 and to achieve zero waste by 2020.

This is not just composting as we in New Haven know it. Items for the green container include ALL food scraps including bones (or “anything that used to be alive” as the instructions read) and various paper food containers, including greasy pizza boxes. The program is contracted to Recology, an employee-owned waste management company that is the end result of expansions, mergers, and acquisitions of a number of smaller “scavenging” companies servicing San Francisco since the late 19th century.

What happens to all this material? According to the Recology site, hundreds of thousands of residents and over 3,000 restaurants and other businesses send over 400 tons of food scraps and other compostable material each day to Recology's Jepson-Prairie composting facility. There it is turned into nutrient-rich “Four Course Compost,” which is sold to farmers, nurseries, landscape supply yards, and vineyards. There would seem to be gold in these compostables.

Food scraps to wine. I love San Francisco.

And, there is more. Recology has constructed a sculpture garden as a screen between the landfill and the neighboring residential area. And it has established an Artist in Residence Program at the Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center. There “Art is created from what would have been sent with the rest of San Francisco's trash to landfills across the Bay or recycling plants across the nation.”

San Francisco has a plan. It seems to be working. We still need one. We have lots of compostables. And restaurants. And smart people. And artists. We have an old transfer station. Maybe New Haven could mine a bit of green gold. I feel like Dreaming Big today.