This year’s theme is “Life Starts from the Ground Up.”
This theme was chosen to coincide with the Food and Agriculture Organization designating 2015 the “International Year of Soils”. Healthy soil is important for all things on Earth. Soil is the basis for life, as soil gives us many things necessary for survival. Crops for food, trees to produce oxygen and lumber for building shelters, clay for creating bricks for building structures, plant fibers for creating clothing, ground to live on, and minerals in the soil used for medicines, food, and other items. This is a short list of the many benefits we receive from healthy soil. The Earth Day Alliance wants to help bring attention to this important environmental resource and show people that healthy, sustainable soil is important for our future. Did you know that it takes 500-1000 years for one inch of soil to form? Therefore, it’s important to protect the soil we have today. Some ways we can protect the soil include: reducing pollution, reducing/preventing erosion, reducing and/or rerouting stormwater runoff.
So composting at our home has been…well, I’d say it’s a definite challenge. Doable? Yes for sure. Draggin rotting stinky food on the subway or biking with it (much better option) to the nearest farmer’s market and compost disposal unit, is definitely a task. But I think it has been worth it.
There has been a couple of times where we got lazy, annoyed at the stink and threw it out in the garbage…guilty! Yet every single time we have gone and dropped it off at a compost site, it has made me take a sigh of relief and accomplishment. It feels good to compost, and it feels extra nice to be good to our Earth!
Last time when we dropped off the compost, I kept noticing frozen pieces of fruit and vegetables in the decomposing piles of veggies, fruit and grains. And then it dawned on me……
Duh! Freeze it!!!! Of course! Makes total sense. You slow down the rate of decomposure by sticking your compost bin in the freezer, and it reduces the smell and the hassle of cleaning by a “Fafillion” Percent!
So Do it! It makes it so much easier. Now next time we go to the farmer’s market to drop it of, we won’t be gagging cleaning the bin out every time. : ) That’s nice yo…
Until the next compost update!
-Mensa
