Compost!

Hi, Hello, Welcome.

My rambling for today will be on compost! One of my favorite things ever!

What the hell is compost? It’s beautiful, dark, moist, fragrant stuff that results from decaying organic matter, kind of like hummus, the decadent top layer of soils (not hummus, the delicious pulverized bean snack).

Why is compost so important? It’s nature’s way of recycling nutrients back into the earth. Compost comes in all shapes and forms. From manure (including humans, a fun term called ‘humanure’), decaying food waste and scraps, to decomposing weeds and plant matter. If you have a garden, you’ve likely used compost as a nutritional treat for your plants. Compost, like recycling, is absolutely essential for the planet’s health. Decomposition (death) is the coolest part of the nutrient life cycle. Watch this suh-weet video from Crash Course about Fungi! In the forest, fallen leaves decompose with the help of soil microbes, fungi, and bacteria, which munch the yummy leaves into the rich soil. Literally, everything alive turns into dead things which turn back into living things.

Organic matter breaks down and allows for other organic matter to take its place. Compost is a microbial paradise of decaying goodness for everything, from the soil to the nutrients in the food that grows from it.

Landfilling food and organic waste contributes heavily to excessive emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than CO2. Decaying organic matter, mixed in with every other type of waste we produce as humans, does not make a productive breeding ground for the good fungi, bacteria, and microbes that would normally devour that organic waste. Food waste is rampant in the U.S., and accounts for nearly 22% of all discarded material in municipal (people’s) waste.

One of my main pet peeves is food waste, but not just the leftovers that I forgot to eat that were pushed to the back of my fridge. I cringe when I see berry tops, kale stems, and banana peels go straight into the plastic trash bag. Putting food waste (or other organic waste) into trash bags traps the gases released during decomposition, and creates more methane than it would have in a compost heap, for instance.

Why then, isn’t composting part of everyone’s waste management system? Because it makes too much sense, and most people aren’t exactly in love with the idea of sorting their trash. There also comes some minor organizational details required of waste management facilities, but it is a relatively easy practice. It may soon become a requirement for you to sort your trash!

Composting doesn’t have to be painful, complicated, smelly (well, maybe just a little bit), or incredibly time-consuming. There are LOTS of different ways to go about composting your food scraps and organic waste. You can:

• Start a compost pile in your backyard! Not sure how? Look at this website I just Googled for you!
• Keep your food scraps in a bucket in a cool place in your house, or in a small bucket in the freezer (like me!) and take it to a local community garden and dump on their compost pile (I asked permission first).
• Start a vermicomposting bin (like me!) with red wiggler worms, two plastic tubs, and newspaper.
• Ask a neighbor, family member, or friend if you can dump your scraps on their pile

There are lots of ways to get yourself composting. Just have to do a little diggin’!

Compost is COOLIO and if you’re interested in learning more, or want to make your own worm bin, use that noggin’ of yours and get to Googlin’ about it. The internet is a wonderful place, for at least a little while longer (R.I.P. Net Neutrality).

Anywayyyy, here is my composting setup!

My red wigglers from UncleJimsWormFarm.com happily munching away on some gross old spinach (You CAN mail-order live worms!). finally the future we’ve been waiting for.

I feed my worms about 1 cup of food scraps per week right now (I just emptied the bin, and I’m giving them some time to recoop. They eat a lot of newspaper (printed with soy ink) and produce a lovely dark compost medium known as “worm castings,” (AKA worm poop!) No, it doesn’t stink. No, it isn’t high-maintenance. Yes, I love my worms like my own children.

Where all my worms live. This is just two 5 gallon plastic totes, the bottom one with holes drilled in the bottom and side for drainage. I covered it in space duct tape for pizzaz.

You don’t have to add pizzaz to your worm bin, but I’m pretty sure a little customization makes your worms much happier in their home.

This plastic bucket (*cough and the container on top of it) is used for fruit and veggie scraps, food waste, and gross things from the counter. I use my fruit and veggie peels and scraps for anything I can before composting them (vinegar, vegetable broth, smoothie additions, etc.).

Since we eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, our compost bucket in the freezer has looked like this basically non-stop all summer. Note the pineapple top, too large and in charge for our measly bucket. When it’s time to take it to the local community garden, we let it thaw for awhile so that it comes out in one nice… plop.

In the colder months, we keep food scraps in a plastic bucket outside. Keeping a bucket outside during the summer months is bad news for attracting flies and *gag* maggots to the compost bucket. Freezing it has been much better on our gag reflex. 10/10 recommend.

Food waste in plastic bags = Bad. Compost = Good. Compost + Learning how to cook and use food scraps better = BEST.

I love composting, and I’ll never stop. It may feel like another chore sometimes, but I feel much better about it than tossing food into the trash can. There’s something I romanticize about taking my bucket of food scraps to the organic community garden, where I get to peer at everyone’s garden beds and listen to the birds in the trees and really inhale that stinky, steamy, heap of love smoldering in the corner in the garden.

Love (and compost),

Ollie

Recycling Properly & My Recycling Bins

Hullo there, welcome to day 2.

I want to talk about recycling today. The act of recycling can feel like you’re making a difference. Just putting stuff into that recycling bin feels good, right? You’ve sorted everything correctly, now it gets made into more paper/plastic/glass, right? Unfortunately, the materials that you bring the recycling center or throw into your single-stream bin (if you’re lucky), may not even make their way to a facility that can recycle things. They may even be taken straight to the landfill.

Recycling centers in the U.S. often export recyclable materials in large, compact cubes. Up until recently, the U.S. exported the majority of its recycling (or waste) to China. In 2017, China passed the National Sword Policy, banning plastic wastes from being imported from other countries. According to NPR, garbage and recyclable materials are piling up in the U.S., and there is a mad scramble to figure out where to send the trash. We’ve started exporting to other countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia. But in countries like Vietnam, they have already surpassed the maximum amount of plastic waste it can import.

Activists Call on G7 and Corporations to End Plastic Pollution Crisis

This NY Times article about China’s plastic recycling ban came out in May, and it has woken some people up. I think there is cognitive dissonance from where our trash actually goes, and just how much of it goes there… wherever “there” is. We don’t think about exactly what happens to this plastic salad clamshell, that greasy pizza box, or the tin soup cans, with tomato soup surprise still coating the inside of the can.

The truth is that, unless every material you attempt to recycle is completely clean of any food or other debris (including grease), your recyclables will be landfilled. Also, if your neighnor decides not to rinse their yogurt containers, the entire compacted cube of #3 plastics will have to be discarded due to what’s called “contamination” in the recylcing world. Also, put yourself in the shoes of the worker in China who has to sort through your trash that is covered in moldy food/other substance. It comes down to this, China banned importing plastic and paper waste because Chinese workers were in real danger, the U.S. was taking advantage of the service, with absolutely no visible connection to the processes happening overseas. Chinese workers were often placed in dangerous, unsanitary, and straight up WTF situations when sorting through the refuse. Animal carcasses, used tampons, and bowling balls included in the list of things people have mistakenly (I hope???) tried to recycle.

So, we have a plastic world, and it’s not slowing down yet. Watch this Kurzgesagt video called “Plastic Pollution: How Humans are Turning the World into Plastic” about how this plastic problem got so out of control. Essentially, since we figured out we could make plastic out of oil, major advancements in medicine, science, and technology have occurred, and lots of good things have come from it. However, whenever we decided to use plastic for single-use items such as straws, coffee cups, and bags, we have buried ourselves in plastic, and kinda f*cked ourselves.

While recycling may sometimes feel like a good deed, unfortunately, its just not enough anymore. We should need to start reducing our production, consumption, and tossin’ of single-use plastics. This means we need to stop using disposable coffee cups, lids, cutlery, bags, bottles, and anything else that we can easily switch with reusable alternatives. Although you are just one person, the choices you make on a daily basis matter, probably a lot more than you think. If you use one disposable coffee cup every weekday for a year, your daily cinnamon mocha costs 260 cups worth of trash. Multiply that by all of the people who get coffe to go on a daily basis around the world. We are talking billions of coffee cups every. Single. Year.

If you’re still confused about what materials aren’t recyclable, good news! You live in the age of the internet, and you have the power to search anything you want. Seriously, just Google it. It’s going to vary state-to-state and city-to-city. You can also call your local recycling center and ask questions. Call your state’s Waste Management Department and ask or go to their website. Here are a quick list of things you should NEVER put into a recycling bin (other recycling facilities for listed items may be availalbe in some places, but this is a general rule for most recycling facilities:

• Greasy Pizza Boxes (compost if 100% paper)
• Plastics #3-#7 ; now that China has banned the importation of these numbered plastics, it’s important to reduce this plastic waste now more than ever
• Any materials contaminated with food waste of any kind
• Clothing, Shoes
• Used menstrual products
• Dirty diapers
• Broken glass, bullets, electrical parts (think about workers’ safety)
• Egg cartons (can often be contaminated, compost!)
• Milk cartons (i.e. Tetra Pak, other plastic-lined containers) where facilities don’t exist. Even regular cartons for things like heavy whipping cream, half and half, or chocolate milk cannot be reycled
• Straws
• Plastic Bags (some grocery stores will have locations where you can drop off plastic grocery bags to be recycled; alas, this is not a viable option, and they are not recycled)
• Lightbulbs, batteries (find out where to recycle, some recycling centers will take them)
• Paper coffe cups
• Flimsy plastic packaging of any kind

Click here for the website for our local recycling center in Moscow, ID.

The situation for plastic overtaking our world won’t get better until we decrease our dependence on it. Choose reusable items, shop mindfully for things packaged in compostable or reusable materials (i.e. paper, glass). Refuse single-use items. Slow down your life for 10 minutes, order your drink ‘for here’ and drink it from a reusable mug at the coffee shop. Ask your friends and family to choose reusables. Be a conscious consumer! People will be inspired by your actions.

That being said, I am not perfect. I still produce plastic waste. The majority of it comes from freed-out break room items at my workplace, things I order online, and plastic food packaging for things like berries, spinach, etc. My partner and I are actively trying to reduce our plastic and glass waste more than any other material. We recycle every scrap that we can. Here are our DIY recycling bins made of connectable shelving and milk crates from the dumpster.

We recycle paper, plastic, steel (we buy canned tomatoes when not in season), aluminum, glass, cardboard, and cork. We save milk cartons for the worm composting bin, and beer bottle caps (just for fun). We take out our bins about twice per month. Now that our recycling abilities are drastically limited, I’m trying to cut out our plastic usage as much as possible. The occasional plastic bag that comes from the local Taco Truck is used to stuff with aluminum beer cans.

People don’t achieve a zero waste lifestyle overnight, and as you can see, I’m surely not perfect even after 4 years of learning how to do it. We can all improve, however. Start by educating yourself about what materials you can and cannot recycle. The general rule of thumb is to leave it out of the recycling bin if you’re unsure. The ban of plastic and paper exportation to China means that plastics #3-7 are unlikely to be recycled. Your paper waste is also unlikely to be recycled. If you’re thinking, “But wait, my local recycling center is still accepting these items?” Well, even though they are accepting them, it’s likely that they are being landfilled or incinerated. Bummer, I know.

More good news though! You have the power to choose. Choose reusables, choose reduction in consumption, choose wisely.

The waste hierarchy goes:

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Rot, Recycle, Landfill.

Refuse – Just don’t use it, refuse samples, bring your own

Reduce – Reduce your consumption

Reuse – Reuse stuff! Duh!

Rot – Compost

Recycle – At the very last the resort

Landfill – What can’t be recycled, composted, or reused

If you’re unsure of where to start, I suggest doing a trash audit. Keep all of the trash you produce for one week, and at the end, categorize it into ‘recyclables, compostables, landfill, and food waste.’ You’ll get a better idea about where your trash is coming from, and from there you can work on how to solve problems and create solutions to your trash heap. Reusable water bottles are the easiest start. You don’t even have to buy one, ask around, raid your Grandma’s cabinets, pick one up for $1 at a thrift store. Find a reusable canvas or cloth bag for groceries and shopping. Again, don’t go out and buy one, remember how I said there’s enough stuff in the world to go around already? Ask your mom, thrift one, make one!

Happy Zero Waste July Day 2!

Love,

Ollie

For more information about how recycling works, I recommend visiting HowStuffWorks.com to read more. Or listen to this Stuff You Should Know podcast about recycling and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Sidenote: ‘Stuff You Should Know’ is one of my favorite podcasts ever, they talk about such a wide range of topics!

Zero Waste Basics and Personal Philosophy

Hello, hello! Welcome to my first ever blog post, ever.

Dis meh

Every day this month, I’ll be posting bits and pieces of useful resources for the transition to a zero waste lifestyle, tips n’ tricks for reducing your waste, and helpful examples from yours truly. I’ve been engaging in the zero waste community for about 4 years, and have drastically reduced the amount of trash I create. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and have studied in the realm of human-environment relationships and climate change.
I got interested in the zero waste lifestyle because of what I was studying, and it only made sense to me at the time to change my behavior based on what I valued: earth, sustainable solutions, and food. I’ve worked in grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, and on a conservation corps crew doing trail maintenance, fuels reduction (tree felling with chainsaws), and other conservation-based projects. I’m currently a full-time morning baker at a local food Co-Op.

I also play guitar, make art, hike, rock climb, read, tend to my plant babies, listen to podcasts and music, and experiment in the kitchen. I’m a super introvert, and a very empathetic, quiet, and resourceful human. I try lots of different things all the time just for the sake of “why not?”

Food is one of my favorite things and is one of the most intimately-woven components of being a human. We are what we eat. What our food is and where it comes from is not only important to our own health and well-being but also has an impact on the environment. I am a vegetarian and ‘part-time vegan.’ I love to create using vegan and vegetarian cooking and baking. I watch shows and movies and documentaries about food, I read about food, I talk about food, I work with food, every day.

I’m also incredibly passionate about reducing food waste and food packaging. I often describe myself as a “freegan,” a term popularized by the dumpster diving and DIY culture, meaning taking advantage of the vast amount of wasted, perfectly salvageable food thrown away on a daily basis. Freeganism, dumpster diving, the zero waste movement, and the DIY culture are all protests towards consumerism, the fact that 40% of the food produced in the U.S. is never touched and thrown away meanwhile millions live in food insecure areas and food deserts, and a throw-away, single-use culture.

My personal philosophy towards the environment and the zero waste lifestyle has been morphed and shaped and challenged by my education, the zero waste community on social media, and my own environment (where I live/work, who I surround myself with, my government). I’m here to make an impact, not by showing you just HOW little trash I can make, but by living in ways in tune with my own values, and hoping that someone else is inspired to make changes in their own consumptive habits.

I personally believe that there is more than enough “stuff” in the world and unless it’s absolutely necessary, you don’t need more of it. I believe that single-use plastics such as coffee cups, straws, utensils, bags, and water bottles are unnecessary, wasteful, and should be avoided at all costs. I’m a big proponent of bringing your own, planning ahead, and learning new habits to reduce your waste. I believe that consumers have the best advantage point for changing the world. You CAN and SHOULD vote with your dollar! Purchase goods and services that treat employees well, make an effort to participate in sustainable practices and align with your values and virtues. I believe people need to learn how to start fixing things instead of tossing away and buying new. It’s easy once you know how! Learn to sew, bake, garden, repair, make it yourself. I believe that food waste can be reduced by choosing what you eat and where it comes from, and learning to cook. I believe plastic is a useful material for advancing the medical, science, and technology fields, but it is just silly to make something that never “goes away” a single-use item that millions (or billions) of people use on a daily basis.

So follow along with me this month, and I’ll let you peer into my lifestyle a little bit. I hope you find something interesting along the way!

Love,

Ollie