As the son of hippie听parents, I grew up throwing our dinner scraps into a compost pile in the backyard or feeding them to our chickens. Things changed after I left home. During my twenties听and most of my thirties, I found myself too distracted and lazy听to deal with听waste, so everything went in the trash. I grimaced every time I tossed leftovers but never did anything about it.
Then I came across the 听($40).听The container鈥檚听sleek design caught my eye, because it听doesn鈥檛 look like a small trash can filled with old eggshells and rotting vegetable bits. Thanks to two built-in carbon filters, it never stinks, even if food has been sitting in it听for days. Made entirely from bamboo, it can go in the dishwasher when it gets dirty, and the handle makes for easy transport.
Once I started using this bin,听I looked up some stats about composting to remind myself why such an easy thing can make a big difference. The list is long, but one fact in particular听jumped听out: food remains make听up nearly 30 percent of all landfill waste, according to the . By composting,听you can keep your share of rubbish听from letting off methane鈥攁 greenhouse gas鈥攚hile it sits at the dump. (Your waste will still decompose in a landfill听but generally at a much slower rate compared to already composted material.) When you spread rich compost in your yard, it replenishes healthy bacteria and keeps听you from needing synthetic chemical fertilizers. As a side benefit, this process听tamps down the smell of your trash.
Once you start collecting scraps in a container like the Countertop Composter, you have to find a place听for a permanent compost pile. Usually, this takes the form of a bigger bin or听heap in the ground where your refuse can decompose.听There are hundreds of online that will help you choose the right spot or container and then walk you through the steps needed to create a healthy pile. It requires听some work听at first, but as I found out growing up, it鈥檚听easy to maintain once you have it going.
If you don鈥檛 want to start a compost pile, your other option is to find a neighbor with chickens. My mom still collects all her scraps, saves them in a plastic bag or ceramic jar (I鈥檓 going to buy her one of these bins), and听walks them up to her neighbor鈥檚 house a few times each week. His chickens feast, and in return, my mom gets a dozen farm-to-table, cage-free eggs with lovely听yellow-orange yolks every week or so. I鈥檇 call that a good deal.