One Man's Notes

This is my new pride and joy.

A year or so a switch flipped in my head. The more I watched vegetable trimmings, teabags and coffee grounds go into our bin, the more bothered I became about it. Those were good resources, resources a damaged planet badly needs, and we were locking them away for centuries or more in capped landfill sites.

I hated it.

Our council doesn’t offer kitchen waste recycling, so the only option open to me was home composting. My wife took some persuading, but a few months ago, with agreement, I ordered myself a beehive composter, and for the last two weeks it’s been sitting in the back garden, happily accepting anything I throw its way.

Compost n00b

I’m a novice - I know I am. I’ve only had a composter once before, back when I lived in Lewisham. But the garden there was not what you’d call accessible. It was down two flights of stairs, once you were out of the front door - and then up another flight of stairs. And to get to those you had to escape the back door, which was heavily bolted. I always assumed it was that way due to break-ins before i moved in, but I never found out. But those bots sure as hell slowed me down.

Now, my new composter is just outside the back door, and there’s so much more fun to be had. (Yes, fun. Don’t @ me.)

There’s so much more to compost than there used to be. For example, Waitrose have just started sending their organic bananas out in compostable bags. Magazines are arriving in similar bags. Even my local coffee shop is providing compostable coffee cups and lids. In they all go.

Yes, this is fun. I’m looking forward to turning over the compost in a month or so. I’m looking forwards to watching how effective all these compostable materials are. I spend so much of my life in front of glowing screens, something like this is just such a refreshing change. And, let’s face it, with the state of the planet, every single change like this we make helps, just a little.