Thursday, March 29, 2007

Composting

So going off of Emily's tip I'd like to start putting food waste in the compost bin. I found a nice counter top bin at Gaiam (I'll add their website, they have tons of cool products) and Bio Bags. It looks like you can just throw the biodegradable bag into the compost. It says they decompose in about 30 days. I'm going to check with the wase co. to see if that would be ok, but I just through I'd throw it out there to see if any of you know. Also I'll be looking for a list of what can and can't go in the compost, so if you know that please share too.

6 comments:

Erica said...

One thing worth asking is if you can throw the gdiapers in the bin also (pee ones). Since they are 100% biodegradable...

Erica said...

If your order that compost bucket, let me know! I may get one too and we can order it together :)

Sarah Michele said...

I was wondering about this too...I read this artcle that confused me, it said this:
"But unless you have a back yard, say, and that’s where you dispose of your biodegradable waste, it isn’t going to biodegrade. The problem is the design of the modern landfill (which you can read about in Elizabeth Royte’s fascinating Garbage Land). The landfill is not designed to help things to biodegrade, which requires contact with air and water. Instead, landfills hermetically seal their contents away from the environment to protect it from the toxic things in the landfill that aren’t biodegradable (of course, the seal breaks down in 70 years and leaves a toxic mess for our grandchildren to deal with, but that’s another story).

What this means, is that organic things like apple cores and yesterdays newspapers and cornstarch cups, when dumped in the landfill, either don’t break down at all—and certainly don’t end up returning nutrients to the earth—or they break down anaerobically, which means they produce methane, a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide."

Sorry that was so long but does that mean that unless we put it in the actual compost bin that even biodegradable stuff won't biodegrade? I wonder about stuff like the Method wipes and if I switch to biodegradable baby wipes along with the better diapers? I know its better in the way of not using chlorine bleach and other harmful chemicals. Help please....

Erica said...

Yeah I read all that too. I was just saying that to Jennifer yesterday. I almost starting putting all my banana peels and stuff in the green bin a few days ago but looked it up and found out I couldn't (which I am glad is wrong). This is why it's frustrating to buy better diapers but it doesn't really biodegrade in our landfills, so I really want to look into gdiapers. So confusing...

Sarah Michele said...

Yea it is so confusing. The Seventh generation don't biodegrade right? But they are made with earth friendlier chemicals which helps with the Carbon emissions. I think gdiapers sound like a good option. Even better if you can put them in the compost thing... Thats really cool that you two are looking into them more.

Erica said...

I think the seventh generation diapers have biodegradable ingredients, but they are not 100% biodegradable... But if they are in an environment that won't allow them to break down, then that sucks!

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Jennifer started this blog because she was going through the process of becoming more conscious of her lifestyle choices and had decided to "go green". As she talked to her friends she quickly realized that she was not the only one interested in making changes. The blog was born. We used this as a place to discuss things we've tried and to support each other in the journey.