Composting [DIY]

Okay.... so my last piece was admittedly long-winded and way too scholarly for my taste, but it was for an assignment at school, so I hope you can forgive me. If you actually read it, however, you would have picked up the following fun-fact: 25% of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in 2007 was compostable. That's right.... 25% of all the crap you throw away every year can be composted.

Now you're probably thinking..."But won't it just compost in the landfill and turn to dirt anyway?"WRONG. The problem with landfills is that as you start layering stuff up, it cuts off the air supply to the trash underneath it which means that instead of composting or rotting, it just sits there doing nothing which renders the term 'biodegradable' all but useless.

So let's start composting then, huh? Give me an excuse and I'll have a solution. For those with limited/no space, you have a couple of options; vermicomposting, composting in a plastic bucket, or yuppie composting. Or if you're truly adverse to composting at home, find out if your town or county offers a composting facility (a lot do). If that resource is available to you, start stock piling your compostable items and take them to them to your local composting facility. Though personally I'm lazy, so I'd rather just throw all my crap in a pile at home and let it rot. If you want to create a compost pile at home, Lowes has a pretty nice guide to building your own.

Now here's my situation....

1. I live in an apartment, so a full-blown compost pile is out of the question.
2. The idea of having a box of worms in my kitchen is positively disgusting, so vermicomposting is not an option.
3. I'm a poor college student, so the NatureMill home composting unit is clearly out of the question.

So what I decided to do was convert an unused plastic bin to a compost bin via an About.com article. Here are some pictures...

Basically this is an old resin-code #5 plastic bin that I wasn't using for anything and I just drilled a shit-ton of holes in it; top, bottom, and sides. I cut up a few pizza boxes and added some old produce I had in sitting in the fridge for a while (3.5 romaine lettuce heads, 1 papaya, and 1 pear), and placed it out on my balcony.

Over the last few days I've added some a hunk of grass/dirt from outside, egg shells, a couple sets of coffee grounds/filters, and other random veggie scraps. Clearly it hasn't had much time to do anything, but I figure that it will really start 'cooking' once spring really sets in. I'll be sure to keep this blog updated with the progress of the composting.