For anyone who has tried to compost, ...it takes some finess.
Anaerobic Compost
In my parents'
giant backyard in Ohio, drilling some ventilation holes in two giant garbage bins and sticking them amidst some trees works wonders. But regular compost requires the right
balance of carbon to nitrogen, meaning a healthy balance of "browns" like dead leaves with your "greens", like kitchen scraps. In a Manhattan apartment one can use shredded newspaper instead of leaves to address the C:N balance, but it still requires churning, is more likely to emit an odor, and most problematically, it simply takes a long time, and in my city apartment I barely had space in my kitchen for the food I had yet to eat, let alone all of the food scraps I wanted to get rid of.
Vermicompost
Vermicompost is another option. It works similarly, but instead you keep worms in the bin and let them eat, digest, and significantly speed up the process of your compost. You don't have to do any churning, and you just shred some newspaper between layers. The sped up composting means that your food waste will take up less space (because as organic materials compost they loose significant weight in water and break down). However, my worms died! I fed them plenty and I tried to keep a healthy balance. Nonetheless, it just wasn't meant to be.
My last solution was
Bokashi Fermentation!
It was a fabulous one and definitely the winner...if you have the resources. Interestingly, Bokashi is not actual compost, but rather fermentation. So instead of comparing it to rotting tomatoes, imagine comparing it to pickling vegetables. While on top of my city counter I had vegetables pickling in Ball jars, below I had food scraps composting in giant buckets!
When it Works and When it Doesn't
Pros:
- You can ferment ANYTHING organic (in addition to the usual compostables, you can throw in what used to be taboo: meats, fats, dairy, dead animals...)
- It is relatively fast--your ferment is ready to use a month after you create it
- It does not attract bugs/cockroaches/mice
- It is clean and emits little odor (the odor is comparable to pickling similar foods)
Cons:
- Because it is not composting, the contents do not loose weight. This means you need to dump much more frequently.
- You need to have a dumping location where you can dig a hole, put the contents underground, and cover them.
My local community garden,
Carrie McCracken Truce Community Garden, had a Bokashi group, which allowed me to dump there and purchase the EM ferment from them at below cost (a tiny fraction of what you'll pay from an online distributor). They helped me get started, scheduled group dumpings and even had a
Facebook Group, and even provided me with two buckets to begin. I would say that it is by far the most fool-proof organic waste recycling system, but it also is potentially the most tricky to adapt to a city living situation without yard space.
