I feel so eco-virtuous!
My compost kit arrived last week, and I've been feeding it food scraps, old coffee grounds, and such, practically every time I step into the kitchen.
I'm one of the participants in DC's Curbside Composting pilot program but have yet to have my first curbside compost pickup. All I've done so far is add compostable waste to the little kitchen bin - but so far the collection process has been easy...even fun. The kitchen bin is compact, well-designed, a breeze to open and shut, and not the least bit odiferous.
So much better to crack an egg and toss the shells into the compost bin than in the trash! Dirty paper napkin? Compost it! Teabag with a paper tag on a string (no staple!). Compost it! Apple peels, soggy lettuce, onion ends, in the bin they go! Half a can of stewed tomatoes (because the recipe called only for the other half) - soil, you shall become! Leftovers that had been sitting in the fridge a day or two past the sniff-test? B.C. (that's Before Composting), I might have felt tempted to consume the dodgy dish, and take my chances on a stomach-ache, rather than add to the landfill. Now? I'm not not wasting food, I'm contributing to the creation of rich, luscious, earth-healing compost!
The compost program solves a storage problem I've had for a while now. I will sometimes try out a new food -- like the box of instant, flavored oatmeal that looked appealing on the supermarket shelf --and quickly realize I don't like it. I can't donate an opened box of anything to a food pantry, and yet it always seemed wrong to toss out a nearly full box of food, merely because I'm picky. Now, P.C. (Participant in Composting), I can rid my pantry of the contents, guilt-free.
Do I think I'm making a difference in the stewardship of Planet Earth? Oh, I admit my household's contribution to this effort is so tiny as not to move the needle even the tiniest, infinitesimal, undetectable fraction of a nanometer. But by gushing over the program in this column, I hope I can recruit a legion of neighbors, and play my part in making the pilot a success in Ward 3.
Then from a select few in the pilot program, it will go on to become a city-wide standard household routine....and from our city's success to other cities across America. That's the idea!
Think I"m over-idealizing this thing? Possibly. This is, after all, my first week as a composter, as well as my first time writing about it. Check back with me in six months to a year, as I'm sure I'll have an update....and hope my level of enthusiasm remains the same!
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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
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