My flower trimmings and frozen bananas (not for dessert, for the compost heap)

I’ve always seen composting as the final frontier in environmentally sensitive living. Having enough outdoor space for a compost bin and a garden that could benefit from the nutrient-rich soil it yields would be great, but it’s an impossibility for someone like me who lives in a tiny urban apartment with no yard. Riding my bicycle, taking short showers, and hauling my groceries in reusable tote bags would have to do for now; composting would have to wait until I was living it up in a sprawling country estate.

So you can imagine what an ass I felt like when I discovered that several of my friends have been composting in their pint-size apartments for years. How had I missed the fact that I could compost easily and on the cheap, while lacking green space? Fearing that my eco-conscious track record had been forever tarnished, I turned to the North Brooklyn Compost Project (NBCP) in New York City to find out more about my options.

As most of us know (and the NBCP says on its website), composting is “an important alternative to garbage export.” Rather than condemn your scraps and waste to a unsustainable afterlife on the back of trucks, on top of garbage barges, and in a landfill dumping ground, why not actually use it? Much richer in nutrients and moisture than run-of-the mill dirt, composted soil helps decrease our reliance on herbicides and fertilizers.

According to Kate Zidar, founding member of the NBCP and its “Master Composter,” you can compost anywhere, using any amount of space. She claims that indoors, vermicomposting with worms is the most compact solution. And Sarah Kinbar, founder of Good Garden Ideas has other ideas about easy ways to compost:

I know people who freeze their compostables, save them up, and then take them to an EcoCycle facility, or another similar nonprofit. If you have room in your freezer, that’s pretty smart. Another avenue is to make friends with employees at restaurants and grocery stores that compost, or better yet, personal friends that own or rent land, and therefore have a place to compost at home. Take your compostables there. Your friends will welcome your scraps because it means more nutrients for their garden.

I’m lucky enough to live in North Brooklyn, where the NBCP has a community compost pile in a nearby public park, which means that I’m going to start experimenting with freezing my scraps and bringing it to the community pile every week. I’d like to eventually use worms and vermicompost, but I’m taking baby steps with this whole process. Consider it “composting with training wheels.”

So does this mean that I can just toss every bit of uneaten food into my new freezer bin? Kate Zidar answered my rookie question:

Honestly, you can compost anything that’s biodegradable. But the most risk-free material to compost is anything from a plant – vegetable and fruit scraps, grains, bread, pasta, and egg shells. When you get into dairy, meat, and fatty stuff, you run a greater risk of smells.

I’ve been saving and freezing my scraps for a week now, and I’ve already noticed that my kitchen trash can is much lighter – and less fragrant. I can’t lie: I’ve forgotten my lofty plan for eco-living a few times. (Must. Not. Scrape. Plates. Into. Trash. Can.) But soon I’ll be heading to the community composting pile, where I’ll get to commune with urban hippie-types and take home some of their nutrient-packed soil. Now, if only I had somewhere to use it. My experiment in self-righteous urban composting could turn into a trial in urban community gardening.

Stay tuned for my next post about the afterlife of my frozen table scraps.

Post from: BlissTree

Composting Without a Yard? Eco-Friendly Living for Lazy Urbanites (Part 1)