Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Cleaning Your Compost Bin the Easy Way



SF Has a Perfect Recycling Score

San Francisco ranked near the top in six categories, but stood alone in one area–-recycling. In that category, the city earned 100 points out of a possible 100.

The report, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by Siemens Corp., credited San Francisco’s recycling and composting programs as the city’s “strongest” environmental area.

Top 5 Cities
Garbage, Recycling, Compost
City Score
San Francisco 100.0
Seattle 83.1
Los Angeles 81.9
Toronto 78.6
Minneapolis 72.6

While this is commendable it does come with certain added burdens. Separation of recyclables from garbage and compost, etc. Most of our citizens recognize the need for the City's goal of Zero Waste by 2020 and participate wholeheartedly.
But there is another problem, a dirty, stinky, problem: the green compost bin.
Inevitably, the decaying food particles collect in the base of the bin, creating a thick mass that is difficult and messy to remove.
Until now.
Yesterday, December 13th I had an inspiration as I was taking my building's bins to the curb and I added a gallon or two of water to the bin.
This morning, while still pretty dirty, the bin was completely empty of that foul fragranced mass.
For the first time in a couple of months (since the last time I washed them) they no longer stunk!
I'll experiment with reducing the amount of water and post here as a comment the results.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Stannous Flouride said...

I have figured it out, 1-2 gallons (4-7Liters) is enough. Less and it gets absorbed, more is wasteful, adds weight and doesn't improve the cleaning.

11:24 PM  

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