Thursday, April 1, 2010

Composting by Bike

It's been a tough week, between what might have been strep throat and the torrential rain.
But finally, on Thursday- got a chance to ride!  Although I'm lucky to have lots of public transportation options, I feel like my independence is pretty limited by not having the bike.  Sure, I could rent a zipcar or bike in the rain, but there are a lot of daily errands that need to be taken care of, but don't seem urgent enough to take special measures.

I wouldn't quite describe it as a lovely morning, but at least it was dry and warm-ish, if a bit grey, with the hope of sun by lunch.
I wanted to ride in via the bike path for any additional loveliness I might squeeze out of the morning, but because of the non-biking week, the composting really really needed to be emptied, and stopping at Whole foods on the way to work is the easiest way to empty it.


I'm really glad that we have the opportunity to compost- it's been incredible how much it reduced the size of our weekly trash- easily by 50%.  It's tough to have outdoor composting in a dense urban area, and I'm not quite committed enough to do worm composting.   My brother In Denver had curbside comport pickup, but we're not that advanced.  The city of Cambridge does promote commercial composting pickup, and Whole Foods allows people to use their bins for personal compost.
This is not a fun load to carry like a case of wine or a bag of dogfood- it's can be a little stinky and has a tendency to drip compost "tea".
 For this purpose, I have an old re-usable bag, that has a tear in the upper part, but works just fine for carrying icky stuff.   Thanks to a tip from my sister-in-law, I use compostable bin liners that are like really weak plastic bags- they make things a lot less messy.
 Once I've dropped it off, I can fold the bag and slip it on the rear rack where it's downwind of me.  A quick shmear of alcohol cleanser and I'm on my way!
The main downside to this program is that I never get any "finished" compost for use in my garden.  I think it's been offered for pickup at the public works dept, but I always seem to miss it.

3 comments:

  1. That's dedication!
    I've thought that what we need is compost drop-off in our local parks. I have a community garden plot and we have a space set aside for leaving compostable items.
    In Paris they take that idea a bit further and you can even bring your Christmas tree to the nearest park for composting.
    Oh, and you know you're in New England when you see a Christmas tree out for trash pickup on March 30th. I wasn't even surprised! Just glad they were going to clear out Christmas before Easter arrived.

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  2. Woah!
    Did you see the Christmas tree just a block from Mass Ave on Trowbridge? I was walking back from the library on the 30th, and saw a Christmas Tree lying by the curb. It was surprisingly fresh looking, which was additionally surprising. I'd like to think that there weren't multiple trees out for recycling.....
    weird.

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  3. Nope, it was in the South End. But that's standard for New England, right? We saw some Christmas wreaths out this morning.

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