Sunday, September 21, 2008

Recycle-o-rama

Just like Tony Soprano, I am heavily into waste management. I produce very little garbage for the landfill, partly because I am so much greener-than-thou, but mostly because I hate the idea of transporting smelly stuff. So composting becomes important, not only because this is a practical way of improving soil quality, but also because I might spend a month or more filling up a bin liner with garbage, and any organic waste in a plastic bag would start reeking horribly.
Here's my system, above. The bucket furthest to the left contains food scraps, awaiting their final destination on the compost heap. The small bucket with the white lid contains wood chips, to add to the food scraps to prevent smell and growth of mold. The next bucket contains greywater, any water left from doing the dishes, washing the floor or whatever. The greywater is simply dumped unceremoniously various places around the cabin, the soil easily processes the miniscule amounts of detergent and biological matter. The reason I don't have pipes leading from my kitchen is that since I use quite little water, a pipe will easily become clogged. (The only reason plumbing works in cities is that everybody uses "more" water than they technically need.) Also, dumping gray water at the same spot over a long period of time can end up smelling quite offensive.
The cardboard box to the right contains paper, woodscraps etc, anything that can go into the wood oven.

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