Being Green: Apartment composting

In addition to the big "no paper towels" switch, we also started composting. This started out a little rough but now that we have the right equipment it is really simple. We have a large composting system in our complex's community gardens. All we have to do it take our vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, and egg shells over to the dumping pile each week. These scraps are mixed with a carbon like newspaper strips or egg cartons to keep the smell down and nature does the rest. Our first dilemma was what to use to store composting scraps in the house. An old plastic detergent container worked for a few weeks until it got really smelly. Then I found this ceramic composting pail (comes in stainless steel too) that has a carbon filter on the top to cut down the smell. It works! It looks nice on the counter and the lid just lifts off so it is easier to throw in small scraps like strawberry tops.

If you don't have a community composting system set up check out the following websites for information on setting up your own composting system. Just think, you could have some great soil to plan your container herb garden that you will use to spice up your home cooking. Stay tuned for our adventures into the world of worm composting on our porch.