I know some of you participate in composting, either doing the whole process yourself or taking part in a municipal food scraps program. Some cities started food scraps programs years ago for single-family dwellings but have been slower to roll them out for multi-family complexes. The municipality that I live in has just implemented a city-wide food scraps recycling program for apartment complexes and other similar type buildings.
I was given a few instructional pamphlets and a plastic bin, very much like the bin you see in the video above. The goal is not for everyone living in an apartment to start making nutrient rich soil on their balconies, though there’s nothing to stop you from doing that. The intended goal is to remove and separate food waste from all the other garbage going into landfills. Food waste can be composted and converted into soil for various uses. Less garbage then goes to the landfill and takes up less space. As with almost anything, if there wasn’t a financial benefit to this, people wouldn’t be doing it. Putting less material into landfills saves money.
It’s been quite easy to dump my food waste into the bin. It came with a free biodegradable bin liner bag which was convenient. The only tricky part is to get the liner bag to stay open to dump your scraps into. Once you close it, the way the creases have been folded, it wants to stay closed so re-opening it is a bit of a pain. I was told you can just use old newspapers to fold into a liner for your bin and that’s what the young lady in the video above is showing us how to do.
Once the bin is full, I’m supposed to bring the scraps down to the garbage room where there will be special containers to accept all the scraps from all the residents. The bin liner bag is convenient since you can just pull it out of the bin like a brown paper lunch bag and take it with you. The newspaper liners seem to be a bit more work since they don’t have a top to them. I suppose I’d have to bring the whole bin with me to the garbage room and then dump the liner at that time.
So yeah, look at me! Friend of the environment! Captain Planet must be so proud!