Archive for February 20, 2008
Compost in the City
Most people probably don’t find compost very sexy, but I’m actually quite passionate about it. Organic waste, like food scraps, sticks, leaves, dried flowers, etc. aren’t really “waste” at all – they’re potential dirt. And dirt is good. All you really need is a bin and some worms, and you can trun your food waste and yard scraps into nutrient-rich soil for your garden. And in New York, which is plagued by soil shortage and an expensive waste disposal system, compostable garbage should be coveted.
Unfortunately, most New Yorkers send these nuggets of nutrients to the dump rather than keeping them around. And I really can’t blame them. There isn’t much space in the city for composting – even if you have the cahones to set up an indoor worm bin, most New Yorkers don’t have enough space inside their apartments to squeeze one into. The city should really set up a more effective system for collecting yard and food waste (right now all we’ve got is a yard waste collection program). But that’s not the point of my writing today – I’m here to discuss a more urgent and somewhat personal matter.
My apartment, as you may know, has an outdoor deck area with plenty of space for composting. As you may not know, however, is that Boyfriend and I are leaving the city at the end of this month and heading out on a road trip (more on that later). This means that I have to somehow get rid of my compost before the next tenants arrive to take over our (beautiful) home and garden. And I can imagine that they’re not going to want to deal with this: (more…)
