October 16, 2007

Composting and The 40 Year Old Hot Dog

Recently I've been reading a lot about composting. The idea that hot dogs can take 40 plus years to decompose in an average landfill is frightening... and I'm not sure what scares me more - the fact that landfills do not provide an optimal environment for decomposition, yet we continue to fill them or that hot dogs take THAT long to decompose, yet I continue to eat them. In any case, the less we send off to landfill the better. With that said, I've been toying with the idea of starting to do some composting at home, however given our very urban site, I'm not sure how it would work. Once we get the back more 'yard-ified', I'll re-evaluate whether it's an option for us. In the meantime, I'll just continue to learn more about it...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

not sure what exactly composting is about.. but my mother is super ecological and she'd keep our trash in rome to take to the country to burry. She'd have a separate bin just for left over foods like orange peels and just scraps of food and put those in a hole in the country. I thought it was sick. (but maybe very ecological) Then she'd make me use only one scrap of toilet paper at a time... she'd leave pots out on the terrace to catch water when it rained. she'd keep water from rinsing the dishes to water the plants. I always thought she was a little mad... but now reading about sustainability.. maybe just a little less mad.
maya

Anonymous said...

People here in Seattle compost like crazy. We have a separate bin for yardwaste mixed with food scraps (no meat or dairy) and the city takes it away to make compost and resells it back to us packaged up. Or, the city sells discounted compost bins to put in your backyard. http://tinyurl.com/2dygtr
(they look like they're having so much fun!) We keep foodscraps but that's about it...