Kombyashi and the art of fermentation

Well it's been a ridiculously long time since I blogged.  That's what happens when you are a mother of a young child and try to take on way too many projects!  But I'm pleased to say that I am back and just as inspired as ever.

So here is an update (although I haven't been blogging, I have still been moving forward in my waste free home mission).

I attended a composting, worm farming and Bokashi bucket workshop run by my council (Kingston Council) and it was fantastic!  You know the problem I had with throwing away bones and meat, well I have solved that problem at last with my new Bokashi Bucket.  I'm super happy about it and Brendan is too.  When we first got it we couldn't remember what it was called so we started calling it the Kombashi bucket which soon became the Kombyashi bucket.  It is the bucket of peace as it's name now suggests as there are no more fights over throwing bones in the compost.

So what the heck is a Bokashi bucket?  Well that's a good question because although I had heard of them in the past I wasn't entirely sure how they worked.  Here's the run down on all things Bokashi:

Bokashi is a Japanases term that means "fermented organic matter"  As the name suggests you use an enzyme mix to cover the food waste in a bucket and it ferments.  This is a different process to composting as composting requires oxygen for the microbes to break down the waste, whereas the Bokashi bucket is a sealed unit that must be kept air tight.  This is because the microbes in the Bokashi system don't like oxygen and will die.  This is called an anaerobic environment, whereas a compost is an aerobic environment.  The anaerobic environment doesn't produce heat like a compost and emits very few green house gasses.

Other facts about Bokashi buckets:

• You can recycle all of your food scraps including the ones you don't want to put in your compost like meat, bones and dairy as well as small quantity of paper scraps
• You can keep it in your kitchen, you don't have to put it outside as it doesn't smell
• the liquid fertilizer produced can be used on all your plants (liquid gold!)

The workshop I went to was useful in explaining how it all worked and they also GAVE me a Bokashi bucket and the enzymes which was a great bonus all for simply showing up! 

At first I must say I was a little intimidated because it was something new and it sat there on the bench for about 1 week.  But then one day I just thought "how hard can it possibly be?" and I put it all together.  There really wasn't much to it.  I had to screw on the tap and put in the plastic divider which separates the liquid from the solid waste and then I was good to go.  The instructions say - put waste in the bucket, squash it down making sure there is no air pockets and cover with the enzyme which resembles ground up bran flakes. Simple! I've been using my Kombyashi bucket for about 2 months now and just adding meat and bone scraps along with left overs with meat in them.  It is almost full.  So what happens when the bucket is full?  

I thought about how wonderful it would be for all those people living in apartments and thought that the Bokashi bucket was the answer to the problem of organic waste being thrown in the bin.  But then I found out that when the bucket is full the contents have to be buried for 2 weeks where  the process is finished off and turns into lovely compost.  I was a bit disappointed about that though only because it meant that if someone didn't have access to a spot outside where they could bury the contents of their bucket it wasn't really very practical for people living in apartments...

At any rate the Bokashi bucket closes the loop for me in regards to organic waste in our household and my mission of turning waste into food for my garden and indoor plants.  That makes me absolutely happy!  I can tick that one off my list - YAY!!!

My next step is to bury the contents of my Bokashi outside and wait 2 weeks.  Stay tuned for my next exciting adventure when I uncover the baked Bokashi :)

Polystyrene Project Complete!

Well I did it, I found a place to recycle my huge amounts of polystyrene!  It was still a bit of a mission but I'm very pleased to say that I didn't have to drive across town to Fitzroy as I found a place on my side of town. 

At first I thought, maybe the place I bought the bed from would be able to recycle it.  I was sure that with huge amounts of polystyrene they would have measures in place to recycle as much waste as possible.  I was hopeful at first when I called the store and spoke to a friendly guy who thought that it was recycled at the warehouse as all there waste is collected and sent to the warehouse for disposal.  He gave me the number.  I called and in a strong Aussie accent I was informed with a 'NUP' followed by "who told you that?!" As though I was raving mad for asking and suggested that I should be able to put it in my normal garbage bin.  When I told him I was trying to recycle it his response was 'huh?' He had absolutely no idea that it could be recycled.

So, deflated I thought if a big store like that doesn't recycle it's polystyrene is it really worth calling the next big chain, getting the number for their warehouse and getting another "NUP" response?  Probably not.  

Hmmmm...... I got down to some investigatory thinking, then it hit me. RIGHT! The Council must have some idea where I can recycle this stuff in our area, surely?   I got onto the webpage for the Kingston Council.  Yes they did have some links.  A good resource for Melbourne is the Metropolitan Waste Management Group.  They are a company that works with the government and councils to educate people about waste and they have some links to places where you can recycle stuff.  I have added their link to this blog if you want to check them out.  

The closest place was the Monash waste transfer station about 25 minutes from my house.  Not bad.  Now to get it there.  It was a rainy miserable day when we packed up the car, squeezed Seb our son in the back with all the polystyrene and some cardboard and headed out.  We had decided that the baby booster seat which my old cat had used as a bed could go too as it was made of polystyrene.  So there we all were, the baby seat on Brendan's lap squeaking away as it rubbed on the dashboard and little Sebby hidden from view by mounds of polystyrene and the rain bouncing around outside.  We pulled up to the gate of the waste transfer station and the lady took one look at us, pointed to the baby booster seat and said "You're not throwing that in the polystyrene recycling".  "uh, ok" I said taken aback and not really sure why we couldn't but a bit afraid to ask as she scowled at me.  I guess it is compacted polystyrene and this must make a difference.

There we were, dedicated to the cause, Brendan and I putting every speck of polystyrene from the car into the recycling bay as the rain pattered around us. We had made the effort and it had been our little family adventure and now with all the polystyrene safe and sound in it's new home we could head home to our lovely spacious garage that was clean and polystyrene free.

Other stuff you don't think about...

So after my garbage audit I looked around the house to find other stuff lurking in hidden places under the stairs, in long forgotten draws and frankly in quite obvious places I had chosen to ignore. We just bought a new bed and the amount of waste the packaging generated was a bit over the top. And after all that polystyrene parts of the bed were still damaged. When something is made a million miles away it's no wonder it gets damaged with all the other beds, wardrobes and furniture stacked up high in warehouses. Anyway now I have a heap of polystyrene piled high.

You could almost say that in some things I am a hoarder. This tendency has arisen in me because I don't want to throw something in the bin and I don't really know what to do with it but I'm sure that there must be some way to recycle it. Essentially what I am doing is procrastinating in finding a solution to this stuff but I don't like to think I procrastinate! My partner, brendan's incesent bugging has finally got me off my butt to do something about it.

Not quite as bad as this fellow!

Previously I was determined to recycle a pile of procrastinated polystyrene I had hoarded since we moved into our new house. Brendan had threatened me with throwing it all in the bin before I finally did something about it. I found the only place in Melbourne where the public can recycle polystyrene. It's in fitzroy on the other side of town. So one day I packed the entire car with ever scrap of polystyrene and drove it to fitzroy. It was a mission and I have vowed to find an easier way this time.

So now I'm thinking about all those furniture stores that accumulate huge amounts of polystyrene and wonder if a truck comes and picks it all up and takes it to the recycling place. Maybe I could drop off my bundle there? Would they let me do this out of the goodness of their hearts? Could there be something in it for them?

So time to be proactive and find out!  Will let you know how I went.

Over and out!

Dirt Girl :)

Garbage Audit

Time to get down and dirty!  I have gone through the garbage bin to find out the type of stuff we throw away.  Although i'm generally pretty careful about what goes in the bin I find myself a little upset that some things that can either be recycled or composted are still finding their way into our bin.  Also, I was confused and felt a little hopeless about some items as I didn't know what to do with them.  I really, really, really didn't want to throw some things away but there wasn't any other option.  I felt torn and ultimately depressed at the hopelessness of garbage and "stuff"!  Every time I go shopping all I can think about is the stuff I will have to throw in the bin - I think I'm a little obsessive!

Lets take a look shall we?  What's in my bin

• Plastic - the number 1 item comes in many forms

• plastic bags from large purchases like a new computer and food packaging
• foam meat trays
• random hard bits of plastic from a furniture purchase
• the plastic bits that hold tags onto clothing
• bin and bread ties
• take away containers
• Random food and letter packaging which is a combination of plastic, paper and foil
• Smelly fish left overs in foil and plastic
• Chicken bones and wooden skewers
• A coffee cup
• An old pare of shoes
• An old rag
• Paper
• A television cable
• Dental Floss

I think the thing that most concerned me was the amount of organic stuff in the bin that could obviously be composted.  Unfortunately my partner objects to putting bones in the compost (as a lot of people do) but I argue that it is a covered black bin and therefore pests like dogs and cats and rats cannot get into it.  However he isn't happy because bones last a long time...  Yes this is true but imagine what they will find in 1000 years time when our house is an archaeological dig!

...."Hmmm interesting - it looks like this primitive family ate un-genetically modified chicken!"

So I gathered up all the paper, chicken bones and wooden skewers and snuck them into the compost bin when my partner wasn't looking!

I couldn't bring myself to throwing away my old shoes so I donated them to St Vinny's (not sure what they will do with them - throw them in the bin perhaps?)

I threw as much as I could in the recycling - the coffee cup (and berated my partner making sure he puts it in the recycling in future) and the small bits of plastic that I thought could be recycled such as the clothes tag plastic, the take away containers and I thought the random hard bits of plastic might be able to go in there too (any type of plastic that is bendy can go into our recycling. This is something that I learned while doing the sustainable homes program through my council).

Also a note on plastic bag recycling - you can recycle your plastic bags (and plastic wrap) at coles or woolworths in their plastic bag recycling bins.  I want to do more research on this.  Unfortunately I think they bundle all the plastic up, send it to China to be refined to make more plastic.  This means that it is recycled, however it has to journey over the sea in a shipping container that could fall off a boat and end up with all the other plastic in the ocean.

I'm afraid I threw the fish stuff in the bin - I just couldn't bring myself to opening the plastic bag, removing the organic bits, washing the foil and disposing it in the recycling bin.  I will try to do better next time.

The television cable I took out and put with my pile of electronic waste (E-Waste).

But I was at a total loss what to do with the dental floss, the old rag and the random food and letter packaging that was a mixture of plastic, paper and foil.  I was in a spin - what the hell do I do about dental floss?  I had to throw it in the bin.  Now I am torn every time I go to floss my teeth.  The dentist thinks I need 12 fillings because I don't floss my teeth.  Can someone please tell me is there any compostable dental floss out there?

I have resolved to buy things that aren't packaged in un-recyclable packaging.  Its funny how attached you get to different types of food.  For instance, I could just feed my son porridge from whole rolled oats, but he loves this baby food which is basically the same thing ground up with flakes of dried banana in it.  The problem is that it comes in a plastic composite packaging that just can't be recycled.  It's a difficult choice but it must be done.  If only I could find a whole foods shop in my area I would be right - but the only ones I know of are in Smith street in town: Friends of the Earth and the Wholefoods shop across the road.  Tips anyone?

So where to from here.  

1. Firstly I can try to control what goes into our bin a little better stopping organics from ending up in the bin - still not sure what to do with the bones. I will have to think about that one and do some research.  
2. Everything that can be recycled should be recycled.  And lastly limit the amount of composite and plastic packaging that I buy in my local shop.  It means that I need to find a way to buy things at a whole foods store.  More research required.  
3. This will also limit the amount of plastic bags used in shopping.  No matter how many green bags I take with me there always seems to be a plastic bag creeping in when I buy beans or something similar.  And of course grow my own food which limits the amount of packaging.  I've just planted the carrots today so I'm back on track and getting my winter crop together.

Dirt girl - getting down and dirty!

What does a tree do and how can my house copy it?

So how can my house be like a tree? Let's investigate a tree a little further.

A Tree

     

• Produces oxygen and filters the air 
• Cleans and stabilises the soil helping to build soil structure when it's leaves and fruit compost into the ground
• Produces shelter for the earth and habitat for animals and insects
• Uses it's waste as food for the next cycle
• Filters water
• Turns the sun's light into energy
• Produces food for animals and insects supporting diversity and Eco systems

So can my house really be all of those things?  Well no..., I guess not - however i'm sure I can make changes that will bring my house closer to what a tree does.

Take for instance a tree creating energy from the sun's rays - this is something our house already does with our solar panels.  And if I take in the entire block my house sits on then I can incorporate things like our veggie garden that we use to produce food, and the trees that I have planted that will help improve soil structure and filter water.  

In this way the little bit of land that my house sits on can be part of an eco system - my house's eco system, that in turn will tie in with the larger eco system in our neighbourhood.  This is the way I will approach my challenge. 

However the main area I am interested in is the way a tree uses it's waste as food for another cycle.  Therefore I will investigate how my house's eco system can use the waste that it produces as food for different cycles.  These will include finding cycles inside and outside my house where items we use can be recycled at the end of their life such as composting and metal recycling etc.  

In line with what a tree does I will also investigate the following:

1. Air quality of our house's eco-system
2. Soil health of our house's eco-system
3. Water capture and filtration
4. Energy use and production
5. Food Production

Anything i've missed - feel free to let me know and I will add it to the list to be investigated.

Dirt Girl