Waste not

There’s one thing that’s been fairly consistent in my life for decades, and that’s a desire to live as sustainably as possible. It’s an attitude Nigel and I shared, and over the years we tried a number of different things to make that happen. After Nigel died, I focused even more effort on that, and it’s become a focus of much of what I now do, and what many of my projects have been about. That will continue for quite awhile.

Some time in the past year or so, I created a ”Sustainability” Label/Tag for posts on this blog. The orginal focus was the solar electricity system I had installed, but recently I started to broaden the topics. However, I’ve been blogging about sustainability for years, and I’ll eventually tag those older posts, too. Turns out, there are even some repeats.

The most direct repeat project was that Nigel and I installed an EnsoPet pet waste composter at our last house back in November of 2017. Nigel actually bought it for our previous house, but we couldn’t quite work out where to put it, so we never used it there. Even so, Nigel had fun asking guests to guess what the assembled (and never used) thing was, and he laughed when they were mildly grossed-out when he told them.

I had no intention of digging up the that one when I moved to Hamilton, so I bought a new one instead. I installed that one two years ago, but Sunny died about five months later, and Jake seven months after that. With just Leo, who’s a small dog leaving only small gifts, there just hasn’t been much need for it. The truth is, I almost never find the gifts Leo leaves in the lawn—in fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. So, that particular repeated project has turned out to be pretty much unnecessary. Still, it’s there if I need it, I suppose.

In September of 2017, Nigel and I started using a bokashi bin for food scraps, but we abandoned it after around eleven months. As part of that project, we also bought a rotating compost bin so we could finish composting the bokashi bin contents in it, something I talked about at the time. Both are being repeated.

The first repeat was buying and assembling a different rotating compost bin, something I did two years ago. I chose a different bin for two reasons: The old one (which I left at the last house when I sold it) was one big chamber, which meant that inevitably, we’d have to stop putting new stuff in to let the contents compost. That would’ve meant, at some point, throwing food scraps away, or resuming use of the bokashi bin, or—something. It turned out, we ran out of time to find a solution.

Things are different here in Hamilton. I live by myself and produce far less organic waste than two people do. Also, Hamilton City Council added a food scraps waste bin that they empty every week and commercially compost the contents. Any cooked or raw food and scraps, including bones, can go into the bin, as can some odd things, like cut flowers (but not any garden waste) and vacuum cleaner bag contents. I’ve used the service a few times, but, again, I don’t produce all that much so it seems kind of pointless.

However, whether I use the council bin or not, I still needed somewhere to get ride of some food waster, as well as garden waste (like weeds I’ve pulled—but not grass clippings, because my lawn mower mulches, something that’s greatly improved the quality of the “soil” of my lawns. The compost bin I bought came with a partition that can be put in the middle of the bin to create two separate chambers, something I thought was ideal: I could fill one chamber, then fill the second while leaving the first to finish composting, then empty the first one and then start filling it again while the second one composted. This year will be the first time I’ve actually emptied it (like I said, I haven’t had much to put in, so it takes me quite awhile to fill a chamber).

Which brings me back to the bokashi bin. I decided I wanted to try it again, thinking that if it can speed up the break-down of food scraps, the compost bin itself will go faster. I only started using it again this week, so it’s way too early to know if I’ll have better luck with it than in the past, but if it doesn’t, I could use the councils food scraps bin.

I’ve also tried to use or reuse things that I already have rather than buying new, even if that means adapting what I have. I have a few projects related to all that, and I’ll talk about them as I work on them.

The important thing, really, isn’t any specific things I’m doing, it’s that the whole point is to live my values, values I shared with Nigel. I want to live as sustainably as possible, and to tread as lightly on the planet as I can. To be clear, I’m no saintly monk: I still have me luxuries and indulgences, just maybe not as many or as frequently as I once did. What other people do or don’t do is entirely is up to them, and I have no interest in “judging” them for one simple reason: This isn’t about them, it’s about me. I have a vision for the kind of life I want to have, and it’s up to me to make it happen, for me.

So far, it’s working. I hope it’ll continue to do so.