Composter Child!

[Opsa]

Anyone compost?

I do it the lazy way. I put my grass clippings and leaves, etc. into a pile at the rear of the yard. One half of it is last year's junk to dig from and the other half is this year's junk to pile on.

Sometimes I remember to stir it, or add soil, but mostly I let nature do the magic.

I just went out today and pitchforked off the old leaves on the dig-from side. There was enough dark compost in there to top-dress my perennial flower beds. There'd probably be more if I was more industrious.

I always talk to the earthworms.

[Aggie]

Other than vermicomposting (too hot in our apartment, too sunny on the south-exposed balcony), I'm looking for a balcony micro-composting alternative for kitchen scraps.  Have ALWAYS composted at home and even after 5 years of city living, it bothers me to toss out peelings and such.  I think there are some depots around the city, but considering how long it takes me to get around to take the recycling in, it'd be well on it's way to soil by the time I made the trip. 

It's got to be fairly low-odor, though.  Not sure if such a beast exists....

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

My Mom's composter has always been fairly low-odour, and hers is just one of the standard black plastic things.  I think it mainly depends what you put in it.  Stinky food will make stinky compost.

As for us, we've got green bins here, which we use.  We've been thinking about getting a composter, but it would only for the garden, not waste diversion.

The green bin system works really well.  We get weekly pick-up of it and recyclables, and bi-weekly pickup of garbage (without food waste, this is a very reasonable pickup interval).  With most of our waste going to recycling or compost, we usually put out a single bag of garbage every 4-6 weeks... sometimes we can stretch it to 8.

Do you folks have similar systems where you are?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

We've got a little chicken-wire do-hickey in my front yard, under a giant tree that hides it. We use grass clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells, peelings when we remember. There's little in the way of turning for us. Air gets in and out on its own, we add a little soil when we mow.

[Opsa]

Any composting is good composting.

The green bins look like a very good idea. Are they part of your normal trash pickup?

I'm in a semi-rural area and we do not get trash pickup unless we hire a private company. Luckily, we have a dump convenience site just outside of town, which has a trash compacter and recycling fascility.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

The green bins look like a very good idea. Are they part of your normal trash pickup?

Yup.  It's all done by the municipality.  Over the past few years, almost all the municipalities around Toronto have implemented programs like it.

Also, we get special seasonal pick-ups: yard waste in the summer and fall (bi-weekly), and Christmas trees in January.  These get composted as well (actually, the Christmas trees may end up as wood chips on gardens somewhere, but they don't go to landfill in any case).

IIRC, composting is approximately revenue-neutral for the municipality, and recycling actually makes money.

I imagine that with large-scale composting, you get a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: you need a composting program to make a composting plant viable, but you can't start a composting program without somewhere for it all to go.  It might be a good opportunity for a government grant or loan to get the ball rolling.

[Bruder Cuzzen]

I recycle all i can, my green container only gets used cooking oil,tissues and meat scraps, all the rest gets composted.  Leaves and twigs go into thick black garbages with a cup of water if they are dry, and nature does the rest.

Large branches are used to make things (that eventually rot away) or i bury them to rot.

I have 4 composters ,but i only paid for one,I also have to use the pit as well as the wire since my neighbour doesn't compost leaves.

[Opsa]

At the back of our yard we have an easement with the local water company where we share about twelve feet of land with them. About eleven years ago or so they came though and ripped up a long strip to put in new pipes. They cut down a Redbud tree (the fiends!) and tore out a barberry bush without any notice. I was quite annoyed, but decided to make a no-man's-land strip at the rear of the yard with a hedgerow on our side of it, so if anything came through again we might maintain some privacy against it.

Last week they came again, but this time they gave us notice and  and were very careful of our hedgerow. It seems the head fellow is also a gardener. They were even careful not to drag away our compost pile. I made sure to go out and thank them.

They nickd a couple of trees, but for the most part did little damage and I really appreciate that.