I have to say, I love love love my green bin. Maybe the novelty will wear off someday, but so far I’m totally enamored with it. It’s like having a new pet. I feel like I’m feeding it.
In the olden days I used to have a worm composter. I kept it in my kitchen and tossed my food scraps in. Thousands of red wriggler worms ate my banana peels and coffee grinds and wilted lettuce, and converted it into compost, which I used on my house plants. We had a happy relationship, my red wrigglers and I.
I loved it so much I got one for the office too. Nancy and I were totally into it – we fed them every day and harvested the compost once in awhile and shredded newspaper for the bin. We had it for years but two of my colleagues lobbied to get rid of it when we moved. They said it gave them the creeps. They didn’t like worms. They didn’t even like the idea of worms. You don’t actually see the worms in a worm composter unless you open it for a peek, and they never even used the handicapped washroom, which was where we kept the composter.
But eventually the squeamish folk won out and we gave the bin away to another non-profit organization.
I credit my worm composters for my fondness towards my Green Bin, and for the feeling that I’m feeding something when I compost. Feeding a pet. Feeding the earth.
The Green Bin doesn’t have worms, of course. Just a small kitchen container and a tall outdoor bin. We make origami liners out of newspaper for the kitchen container. It takes about 10 seconds to make a liner. Bella taught us how.
Incidentally, the Green Bin is having the unexpected benefit of improving my recycling behaviours with my Blue Bin (plastics) and my Black Bin (paper). I’ve always recycled, but not as conscientiously as many other people I know. Since getting the Green Bin, I’ve been taking great pleasure in not throwing things in the actual garbage unless I have to.
I also love my green bin. We are only 2 people in our household but it has made a huge difference in the amount of garbage that we create.
I love our green bin too, but we are having problems getting it emptied. I’m not sure if things are freezing in there or if they just aren’t giving it enough time to dump into the truck, but each week we’ve had more and more left behind in the bin.
We’re now at the point where we don’t have enough space in the bin to hold 2 weeks worth of scraps, because only 1/4 of the bin is actually available, the rest being still full of previous weeks’ waste. I’m really hoping that this all gets sorted out with the spring thaw, because already it just feels really strange to put food scraps and tissues into the garbage.
I love mine too. The other day I threw a full vacuum bag in there and felt a little zing of excitement. I also enjoy feeding it dirty tissues and greasy parchment paper.
We also have a vermicomposter but we’re never able to feed them all our scraps and as two vegetarians with hearty appetites, we have a ton of produce scraps each week. Also, as much as I love our worms, our green bin never insists that we chop stuff up into tiny pieces, it eats it all whole.
I hope the novelty never wears off! Have you named yours? Given that it’s green and loves garbage, perhaps we’ll start calling ours Oscar and see if it sticks. “Green bin” is not a pet name.
I agree 100%
[…] I love my green bin « knitnut.net: In the olden days I used to have a worm composter. I kept it in my kitchen and … http://bit.ly/d1jDWa […]
Shelly, good, I’m glad I’m not the only one!
Lynn, I sprayed mine with Pam before using it, to prevent stuff from sticking. I suppose you could bring it in the house for an hour or so, and probably everything would loosen up.
Parasol, I know, I love the fact that it has such a voracious appetite and isn’t a picky eater. It eats EVERYTHING, even cat poo. I like the idea of naming it and GC and I both like The Grouch. Can we use it? Do you have a separate name for the kitchen container?
XUP, it’s about time you agreed with something I said. 😉
Hello Worm Farming Books, whoever you might be.
Lynn,
We had that issue with getting it emptied as well. The Man went and loosened the crap in the bottom of the bin. Must have worked. (I also think our garbage guy gave it a good whack to get rid of the stuff.) Also we line the bottom of ours with news paper, I think it absorbs to wetter stuff and stops it from getting frozen to the bottom.
Totally love our bin though… we’re down to almost no garbage. I really wish they’d expand the recyclable platics…
I don’t get the origami liner. I think I will have to blog how I do my liner – it takes 5 seconds and even a 40 year old can do it.
Ours are ginormous bins – like the giant blue bins and garbage bins that get lifted by the truck. I can’t imagine spraying the inside with cooking oil. Ours have a gril in the bottom and I spray it out with the hose after every garbage day in good weather (our garbage/compost/recycdling all gets collected once every two weeks) When we arrived we had a little plastic version for under the sink but I don’t like how plastic absorbs smells. So we got a stainless bucket and lid from Lee Valley. I throw it in the dishwasher once in awhile but it stays way cleaner than the plastic without worrying about any liner. Its a personal goal to reuse, return, recycle and compost as much as possible. As a large family I feel we are honour bound to put out as little trash as our neighbours. Usually we have even less. I can usually do one bag of trash for the 6 of us every two weeks.
I too love my green bin…but I hate the stupid bags not fitting properly into the kitchen bin. But I should be happy because the big outdoor bins have proper locks, which, when I was living in Toronto, was not the case and raccoons just murdered people’s bins! Until an unwritten trick was discovered: raccoons can’t get past a bungee cord.
Woodsy, please blog your liner.
[…] some just like to complain about everything the City does. But then there are other people who love their Green Bins a […]