The North Pacific Garbage Gyre is an area twice the size of Texas made up of six million tones of discarded plastic. Oceanographer and racing boat captain Charles Moore first stumbled upon it in 1997. A mellow 11 years later the story started gaining traction in popular media. I first heard about it on VBS.tv in the spring of 2008 and again when a link was retweeted from the New York Times yesterday (the original NYT story was posted on November 9th. How’s that for ecosystem magnification?)
Charles Moore at TED
My time in the Republic of the Marshall Islands only solidified the need for proper waste management at home. Like most developing countries there are few systems to properly deal with garbage. When you add the challenges of living on small islands the problem is only intensified. The RMI’s garbage removal and recycling programs are so poor that a huge amount of the trash ends up in the ocean. It’s incredibly difficult to be standing on a beautiful beach watching the surf wash up all sorts of plastics and waste.
Many locals claim that until recently all products used in the RMI were biodegradable. Most garbage consisted of coconut husks or other food scraps that were that were thrown on the beach. What wasn’t swept away by the tides naturally broke down and the shores remained clean. Unfortunately many of the products used today aren’t readily biodegradable while culturally the ocean remains as a garbage disposal.
RMI wash up trash.
These images stuck with me when I returned home and I had a heightened sense of accountability for my own garbage. During the trip to the Marshall’s my wife moved us into a new apartment (I am still working this one off) but I was happy to find that our new building has and excellent recycling system. I am able to sort and recycle almost all of my non-biodegradable garbage.
This leads me to the real reason for this post: my Christmas present. Somehow my wife must have read my mind or intuited my newfound crusade to battle waste. Her gift was an Naturemill indoor composter. I have to say that it is pretty damn cool. It’s small and compact and best of all it works inside. It comes complete with everything to get started including wood pellets, and baking soda.
All that was needed were food scraps, which there were plenty of after the holidays, and one cup of dirt, which I got from the flowerbed at the McDonald’s across the street. I can officially claim that my composter is powered by Mickey D’s.
Naturemill 101.
Once I cut up all of the food waste I simply added two tablespoons of baking soda, one cup of wood pellets or saw dust and one cup of dirt. For irony’s sake you can get your dirt from the Golden Arches but the jury’s still out as to if it matters where the dirt comes from.
Once rolling the unit heats the food waste and churns it every four hours. The nutrient rich compost tea collects in a tray below, which you can use to feed your plants. The composter uses very little electricity and isn’t smelly, save for when you open it. The only downside is that the motor is a touch noisy when it goes off at night. All in all, the thing is amazing. Between the unit and our building’s recycling I have yet to change our garbage bag in two weeks.
Good old reliable dirt