The first part of this article focused on reducing overly packaged goods and temporarily altering meat-based diets to make disposal a less pungent affair. This second part of “Coping With a Garbage Strike “ will deal with ways to compost, even if you live in an apartment.
Disposing of Vegetable Matter During a Garbage Strike
If you are lucky enough to have a backyard, buying or making a compost box can be a great way to dispose of vegetable matter, as well as providing free fertilizer for your garden. If you live in an apartment building, you could either ask your friends who have a compost box if you could give them your green waste. Be sure not to include dairy products, oily matter such as salad dressing or fried foods, bread or meat: These items take longer to decompose and draw rodents to the bin.
If you have a small balcony or patio that uses container gardening, one option may be “trenching” your green waste. Trenching means digging a hole that is approximately 15 to 20 centimetres (6 to 8 inches) deep, putting about 7 centimetres (3 inches) of green matter into it and covering the hole with soil. You can plant directly above this; the nitrogen released into the soil provides a natural nutrient to plants.
For those with a blender, green waste can be turned into a slurry, and added it to a trench to speed the composting process. A great article online article on how to trench is posted by “ProBiotic” can be found on Instructables.com.
Vermi-Composting: A Space-Saving Alternative For Apartments
Another option for apartment dwellers may be vermi-composting, a process that has worms eat your green waste. A box that can fit under the average-sized sink contains worms and shredded newspaper, and turns kitchen scraps like vegetable, fruit and even coffee grounds and tea bags into nutrient-rich soil.
However, vermi-composting isn’t for those who eat spicy foods or lots of citrus: Worms can’t digest spices and citrus ‘burns’ them, so selecting what you put in your worm bin has to be selected carefully. Otherwise, meats, bread and oils – slow composting edibles – cannot be composted in a worm box, either. The end result is worm castings – a rich soil that only produces an earthy smell when maintained properly: A better alternative to the smell coming from most garbage bins.
Some gardening stores, or environmental stores, like Grassroots Environmental Products sell worms and worm-composting kits. Books on the subject are available, and one that is recommended for the subject is, “Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System” by Mary Appelhof. Another book on the subject that comes highly recommended is “The Worm Book” by Loren Nancarrow and Janet Hogan Taylor.
While garbage strikes are relatively temporary, learning to reduce waste and live a more sustainable (not to mention less stinky) lifestyle may be a more permanent solution. While nobody likes feeling forced to change, consider a garbage strike a crash course in green living, even if trenching, composting or buying habits are just stopgap measures.
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