TIL my neighbor's 3 year old compost bin changed my mind about food waste

I used to think compost was just for people with big yards and too much time. My neighbor Karen in Portland has this tiny plastic bin on her apartment balcony, and she kept nagging me about tossing banana peels and coffee grounds in the trash. Last month I finally dumped my kitchen scraps in her bin, just to shut her up honestly. After about 6 weeks, she showed me this dark crumbly soil that had zero smell and I was shocked. She uses it for her herb pots, and now I have my own little bin under the sink with a charcoal filter. It costs maybe 15 bucks total and I'm throwing away way less garbage each week. Has anyone else started small like this and actually stuck with it, or is my neighbor just a weirdly motivated person?

1 comments

1 Comment

the_matthew13d ago

Oh wow, that is genuinely awesome. I love that it was the zero smell thing that got you, because that is the exact same reason I finally gave in and started one myself. I had this mental image of rotting garbage stinking up my whole kitchen, but with a charcoal filter it really is a non-issue. It is wild how much lighter your trash bag gets once you stop tossing in all those wet scraps, isnt it? Good on you for giving it a shot, it feels like a small win every time you dump a handful of eggshells in instead of the trash.