I had a post last fall about the insane amount of trash that we send to the landfill. Using biodegradable bags that allow air to reach the garbage so it can do what it’s meant to do – biodegrade – seemed like a step in the right direction. Unfortunately those bags aren’t quite where they need to be yet, they’re just not as strong as they should be, which means…more plastic bags. Not sure why it took me so long but eventually it just hit me that composting is not some hippie-dippie thing to do, it’s the responsible thing to do. every two days I keep sending a bag to the dump with stuff inside it that is completely biodegradable. All those vegetable trimmings, leftover food. It may sound simple but it’s taken me this long to get it: I’m part of a system that makes no sense.
While I was researching composting systems I came across something I did not know: the city of Berlin (Germany) actually takes up its citizens’ food waste separate from everything else, and composts it, giving it to farmers and such. That blew my mind. Really it just goes to show that necessity is the mother of invention (like most European cities Berlin has more people than space). But whatever the reason, it shows that when pushed to the limit people will find ways to do things that make sense. Talk about closing the circle. And like most heavily populated urban spaces, Berlin also has a problem with dog poop, so now they are trying a pilot program to compost dog poop – yep – to see if it can fuel some public transportation. (Think about all the little plastic bags that never biodegrade, sitting in landfills because they’re filled with dog poop. Talk about not closing the circle.) There are alot of options for composting, all really depending more or less on how much you want to have to think about it. I got this Green Cone Solar Digester System because the reviews said you could literally forget about it and it would still do its job, to which I said to the computer: sign me up! Let you know how it goes.
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