LOMI vs. MY GREEN BIN

Here's the new Lomi Kitchen Composter

Finally another blog on composting, but instead of my green bin I'm featuring a new, high-tech kitchen composter. An impressive Canadian company called Pela, known for their bio-degradable phone cases, has recently introduced a countertop machine that actually "minimizes food waste at the press of a button." Pela's goal is to create a waste-free future, so for a start they've created this futuristic, high-tech version of a green bin with many fewer steps.  You simply fill it with food scraps, press the button and in a few hours you've turned your leftovers into nutrient-rich dirt. If you don't have your own compost pile and garden, or you live in a place that doesn't have a city-wide recycling program, this sounds like a great solution (all you need is $499.) 

Here's my green bin 10 years ago . It still stands in the same place on my kitchen counter

Though Lomi's  kitchen composter is awesome, I'm not planning on retiring my green bin any time soon.  I praised it ten years ago when I started this blog  and I'm still as enamored as ever. In the first "Me and My Green Bin" post on May 7th 2012, I described "MONDAY MORNING"---  the time when Berkeley recycle trucks pick up green waste in our neighborhood. 

               Exactly10 years later I still collect veggie and meat scraps in my green bin...

...then dump them into the large curbside receptacle provided by the city, which gets  COLLECTED early Monday morning. The previous link describes what happens to the contents of the bins after they are collected.

There are also other solutions: Every week or so my sister takes her food scraps from the freezer in her apartment in Manhattan to her home in CT where she composts it for her garden. Strangely enough, New York City does not have city wide curbside pickups. Instead they have bins near some community gardens and green markets where locals can take their compostable items. I took the photo below in 2015 when I visited the 92nd street greenmarket near my sister's apartment. 

92nd Street Greenmarket vegetation collection

More recently, the city has instituted voluntary green waste collection in selected neighborhoods and the NYC Dept. of Sanitation has issued brown bins like the one below. Despite these minor improvements, my sister Lucia continues to schlep her kitchen scraps to the country for her garden compost pile.

New York CIty's handsome brown bins

With Lomi, the transformation from food waste to compost happens in your kitchen; and it happens lickety split.  Pela has a great Website  with all the details and their weekly newsletter contains fascinating information about their zero waste philosophy.  Lomi News is so useful that I've started saving the emails in a file on my desktop for future reference. Why delete info on topics like the garbage problem or 15 steps to a zero-waste kitchen or can you cook with compost?

I admit I'm impressed with Lomi, but not enough to abandon my green bin and all the low-tech steps that involves. Never fear, "Me and My Green Bin" will continue!

Christmas Treats for the Birds

Peanut Butter and Old Flour Balls - An Annual Christmas Tradition

The sticky dough is formed into rough balls

Every holiday season my sister gets rid of her old flour and buys a fresh bag for Christmas baking, usually a 5 lb. bag of King Arthur. Flour actually does have an expiration date. This year was noteworthy because she dumped the remains of the 20 lb. bag she had scrounged up during pandemic shortages. Then, as in previous years, she mixed the stale flour with other discarded items to make balls for the birds outside her Connecticut house. This year she inherited some Jiff peanut butter that she wouldn't dream of eating, and some old mixed nuts. She added enough water to make the mixture stick together and formed the mass of sticky dough into small balls. Of course there are many elaborate recipes for homemade bird treats on the Web, but she thinks it's much more fun and ecological to compost her expired food supplies this way . 

Note the pumpkin seeds placed on top to create an appetizing bird treat

Pictured above are some finished balls ready to be scattered in the woods on Christmas Eve.

                 Have a Merry Compost Christmas and a Happy Composting New Year!

Dog Poop in the Compost

Here's a lively discussion in our Berkeley Nextdoor email feed about dog poop in the green bin.

Can dog owners use newspapers (recyclable paper) to pick up dog poop and dispose into the green bins?

2 days ago

Ruth Konoff

, 

I don't think dog poop should go in the green can because of risk of microorganisms, especially in carnivore poop. In theory, it may sound like a good idea, since it does biodegrade, but the system they use will not guaranty to kill all of the microorganisms. Since the resulting compost is sold/given away for garden use, the poop should not be disposed of in green can.

Edited 2 days ago

Arkadeep Kumar

, 

Thanks Ruth. What about use newspapers to pick dog poop abd dispose in grey/ landfill bin?

Stephanie Henkle

, New

don't use any plastic (or get plastic bags from stores) !!! Buy 100% biodegradable dog poop bags!!! These are the best ones I have found. http://biobagusa.com/products/retail-products/pet-waste-products-retail/

Jane Tierney

, 

You can pick up and bring home. Sawdust or pine cat litter will help with the moisture and smell. You can get free sawdust (a wonder! wear a particulate mask) at Home Depot lumber departments. Take a tote. The sawdust will also help limit smell of the green bin. Don't use green bin for dog feces. Start a dog poop septic hole. They sell the devices on Amazon. I used one for about five years. Doggie-Dooley:

Helen Cameron

, 

Apparently, even poop bags are a complicated issue: "Here are some facts that even the most eco-friendly of dog owners may not have considered: On average, one dog generates a kilogram of poop every few days. As of 2016, the dog population of Canada was about 7.6 million. That equals over 2.5 million kilograms of dog poop created a day, and over 924 million kilograms a year. That’s a ton of poop, which leads to a heck of a lot of plastic poop bags being used. Approximately 500 million plastic poop bags are used annually throughout the world. One plastic bag can take over 500 years to degrade in a landfill; that is if it ever fully degrades. Hundreds of thousands of marine animals are killed yearly by plastic bags. Many environmentally-conscious dog owners make sure to pick up biodegradable dog poop bags. However, many of these bags are made with oxo-biodegradable material, which isn’t environmentally friendly at all. Oxo-biodegradable plastic has a chemical named EPI added within the manufacturing process, which helps it to break down. Instead of fully biodegrading, they break down into smaller pieces. This makes it a lot harder to clean up than the entire plastic bag would be. This leads to total ecological destruction; it seems that these so-called “biodegradable” products are actually making just as much of a mess as traditional plastic bags are. We need to find another alternative to getting rid of our dog’s waste. Along with this misinformation being spread regarding oxo-biodegradable materials, humans continue to rely on plastics, and they continue to infiltrate our environment in terrifying ways. The National Geographic recently revealed that scientists had found significant amounts of tiny plastic particles falling out of the air in a remote mountain location. If we don’t stop using oxo-biodegradable products, it won’t be too much longer before all of our air is filled with microplastics. As dog owners, we can start to help reduce plastic pollution on our planet. The more we educate ourselves on this issue, the more we can do to help save the world. Together, we can make a goal of completely eliminating our use of oxo-biodegradable plastic bags and single-use plastic bags, which can move us forward to a greener and cleaner future. We can start by using a truly eco-friendly, biodegradable dog waste bag. K9 Clean’s Eco Poop Scoop Bags contain no plastics whatsoever and, when they do degrade, they are completely consumed by micro-organisms. Our poop scoop bags are made of recycled paper, with a unique touchless system so that you don’t have to worry about accidentally touching your dog’s waste. It is possible to take great care of your dogs, responsibly dispose of their waste, and do your part in taking care of our planet. This is why it is important to not only purchase plastic-free products but to raise awareness with your friends and family about harmful products that are marketed as “sustainable.” When we educate ourselves and others, we have the opportunity to make a difference for future generations of people and dogs. COMMENTS Mr. Michael Stephen, Chairman of the Oxo-biodegradable Plastics Association wanted to share his thoughts on this article: “The Truth About Biodegradable Plastic Dog Poop Bags” is actually full of untruths. “The Truth About Biodegradable Plastic Dog Poop Bags” is actually full of untruths. 1. EPI is not the name of a chemical 2. The microplastics found in the environment are from ordinary plastics which have fragmented. These plastics need to be urgently upgraded with oxo-biodegradable technology. 3. Oxo-biodegradable bags do NOT just break down into tiny pieces. They convert into biodegradable materials very much more quickly than ordinary plastics, and they are therefore the best alternative. See http://www.biodeg.org/2018/11/06/uk-judge-find-the-case-for-oxo-biodegradable-plastic-proven/

Ghosts are Compostable

                                                             So are skeletons (real ones)

                                                                        And Witches

                                                   And Pumpkins can go in the Green Bin too

                                                      HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Green Bins Near and Far

                                                                                                                                         photograph in the New York Times

When I saw this woman tenderly clutching her kitchen compost bin I got excited. What's the occasion? She turns out to be Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist who runs the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior at Rockefeller University, nicknamed the Smell Lab and lives on the upper West side of New York. At work and at home she celebrates all smells. "Some people divide the world into disgusting or nice," she said, "I think all smells are great."

Like my sister Lucia, Leslie stows her compost in the freezer when the bin is overflowing. Lucia then takes the frozen waste to the country on weekends, to add to her garden compost pile. Her daughter Hannah contributes her family's compost as well. Leslie takes hers to the nearby 79th street greenmarket, at the Museum of Natural History. where they accept residents' compost.

This proud fellow is overseeing the compost collection at the greenmarket on West 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam in Manhattan. I attended the market on a Friday morning last September and it was lovely.

At the same 97th Street market I spotted this photographer shooting close-ups of the collected compost, just like me.

I noticed this compost bin in Calabria, Italy during my travels there last September. In the foreground is a tray of figs drying in the hot afternoon sun.

                 On our trip to Australia we saw this recycling bin at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney

             Colorful garden clippings headed for the compost pile at Hanalei Bay Resort on Kauai

  Dropping off waste at the picturesque recycling center near Princeville on the island of Kauai

 Pineapple, papaya, bananas---We must be composting in Hawaii again. This time it's the Puakea Ranch on the Big Island!

                                      Colorful spring veggie parings in my kitchen green bin

   I have never featured a photo of me and my green bin. It's about time, so here we are together in Berkeley on my deck.

Vitamin Pills in the Compost

Yesterday when I saw a pile of vitamin pills that Dean had dumped in the green bin, I remembered the guest blog about vitamins in the compost which I had written for Jeanette Baird's Studio last year. I thought it would be fun to post it on my blog, and it might help me decide what to do with the old vitamin B tablets nestled among the pea pods.

Vitamin B pills discarded in Greenbin

                 Jeanette titled her post A Little Green Science Experiment and this is my contribution:

Last week Jeanette emailed me that she had decided to clear out her family's outdated vitamins.  She came across a website that advised her to "place them in hot water until they dissolve, add coffee grounds or kitty litter, place them in a ziplock bag and toss them in the garbage."  So in the spirit of curiosity and adventure, she followed the directions exactly and documented her little science experiment.

Old vitamins bubbling away in hot water in Jeanette's kitchen

Sensing that there had to be a green alternative, she consulted her "Green Gal"--me. I immediately thought of composting them, so when I got done chuckling, I decided to check what the experts had to say.  Interestingly, in all my respected sources, there was zero information on the effect of vitamins added to compost.  Neither the comprehensive Rodale Book of Composting, nor The Berkeley Ecology Center, not my favorite guide, Composting for Dummies, had a word to say on the subject.

Finally, it was the Internet that provided some down to earth suggestions for vitamin disposal, and some novel ideas for their transformation - i.e. bead projects, noisemakers or a base for coloring paint.  Others discourage throwing them away at all, since it is debatable whether vitamin pills actually lose potency after their expiration date, which may be merely a gimmick used by manufacturers to sell more vitamins.
The Garden Web  has a lively forum with opinions and suggestions on discarding and composting vitamins.  The participants maintain that since compost is, after all, a mélange of organic matter made up of kitchen scraps and lawn clippings, etc., why not add unwanted vitamins into the mix.  These little capsules seem to have all the requirements for good compost material--they're small, non-toxic, water soluble and full of nutrients.  Why wouldn't they decompose with the other stuff, eventually turning into humus, which will in turn lighten, aerate and naturally fertilize the soil in the garden.

An Ecology Center employee told me that it's fine to experiment with home composting but the City of Berkeley doesn't want vitamin pills in their green waste.  That means I can't dump unwanted multivitamins in my green bin!
 So I removed the B vitamins Dean had dumped in the green bin and instead, I made a cleansing facial scrub. 

Preparing cleansing Facial Scrub in the food proocessor

Grind vitamins up in a food processor and mix them with yogurt, avocado and lemon or lime juice for a gentle exfoliating mixture you can use on your face and body. 

CHAMPAGNE CORK

                                              Greenbin starts 2014 with a bang!

(Maybe you didn't know that cork is compostable)