When I was a kid, we had a compost heap. All fruit and vegetable waste, like potato peelings and apple cores, went on the compost heap, although meat scraps did not, as we didn’t want to attract rats. After a while, Dad would dig out the compost from the bottom of the heap and bung it on the garden. Easy!
We don’t have a garden, so our food waste goes into a small brown bucket, which is left out for collection each week. If we remember. The bucket is too small for our weekly needs – the bigger one that the council left us got stolen! – and it gets mouldy quickly. I hate it. I insist it’s kept outside, on the landing, and I make Kevin put it out each week.
Recently a group of German scientists have warned that these pre-compost food waste bins are a danger to our health, primarily because of airborne mould spores getting into people’s lungs:
Harald Morr, a leading pneumologist, who is also chairman of the German Lung Foundation, said studies showed that airborne mould spores from organic waste could lead to allergic reactions, asthma attacks, hayfever-like symptoms and itchy skin lesions.
“Even just opening the lid of a bin containing organic waste can cause mould spores to be stirred up which, if breathed in, can damage the lungs,” said Morr. “The more spores breathed in, the worse the repercussions on one’s health can be.”
The recycling system here in Islington is really awful. We have small- or medium-sized buckets which have to hold a week’s waste, or more if we forget to put the bucket out or the collectors decide not to bother (which seems to sometimes happen). It’s completely inadequate for our needs, and I shudder to think how many mould spores it produces.
In contrast, in Dorset my parents’ have got a large brown wheelie bin so they can use composting bin bags in their small bucket and when it is full they can put it outside into the large wheelie bin. This means that their bucket never gets too mucky and, because the waste is enclosed in a special bag, the wheelie bin never gets too mucky either.
But I’m not a fan of the wheelie bin approach either. When we finally get round to building, I would prefer to install a system where I can put all waste into some sort of sink unit, akin to a waste disposal unit, but instead of being chewed up and spat out into the sewerage system, it gets chewed up and spat into a composting system.
I would very much prefer not to have to ferry half-rotting food about, or have to keep going outside to put it in a big composting box. It would be much more civilised to be able to automate the composting system and treat all composting in a holistic manner. If you’re going to compost your poo and your kitchen waste, you may as well do it together if you can.
I’ve had a look online, but I haven’t seen any system that does this. I found small self-contained units that sit under the sink, but that’s not what I want. I’m wondering if such a system even exists. I think a lot more research is going to be needed, or I may have to design the thing myself. If you know of any systems that sound like they might be what I want, let me know via email or Twitter (just @kitsandmortar me)!
