Home Made Composter

Rain barrel, drums, etc can be made into a composter. I wonder what are the alternatives.. It might be interesting to do some trial & error making compost by using our own home made composter.

Don't Burn Those Grass Clippings, Please

Don't burn grass clippings. Grass clippings contain water, moisture within it, so they produce heavy smoke when burned. We can still find people burning them, in the middle of a really hot day... Tell them not to. Grass clippings are good materials for compost.

Shower Curtain from Scraps

More creativity for scrap-based products..

Bad Habit? Throw Away Your Waste..

Here we can see that there are still a lot of people who do not know how to do (or to care about?) their domestic waste management.
Integrated waste management system? It 's still a long long way to go.. Green campaigns to build environmental awareness must go on.

Be Creative!

Our domestic waste can be very useful. Organic waste is the material for compost, while plastic scraps are supplies for creativity.. With a little bit of creativity, we could also learn to create something nice like the bag in the picture, which is made of detergent sachets scraps.

Lack of Information or Just a Bad Habit

What would we think when we see a picture of a creek clogged by a pile of waste? We probably would think that people dumping waste there are not well educated. It might be caused by a lack of information on waste management. Is that true? Well, we might never be able to tell if it is true. It might also be caused by a bad habit. As we can see in the picture, the waste pile is located at the side of a city road. There are some car drivers and motorcycle riders who intentionally slow their vehicles down to toss their plastic bags--fully loaded with fruit and food leftovers, soft drink cans, etc.--to the creek. It looks like they are used to the thoughts like "ok, it's time to empty the waste bin, let's go to the creek.." or something like that.

Compost Community

Caring for our environment is a pleasure. Is that right? What do we feel when we just did something good? Contented, probably. Why don't we share our pleasure with our friends, neighbors, family and every one we know? Let's share! Share the information that our environment needs help, needs full attention. Share that by reducing our waste, especially plastic waste, we contribute an action to the preservation of the environment. Share that by sorting or selecting our waste we would be able to provide materials for compost, for recycling programs. Let's share! Build a community that cares!

Back to Composting..

Here's one information from my local community...

Simple Steps to Composting

Facts

1. Takakura composting utilizes aerobic microbes, which need water, oxygen and correct temperature; frequent mixing helps supply oxygen.
2. Correct composting generates warmth and moisture when mixed.
3. Microbes need carbon-rich materials -- dry, coarse, rich in fiber and are brown in color (dry leaves, dry grass, rice hull, corn husks, sawdust, straw) -- as energy source.
4. Microbes need nitrogen-rich materials -- have high water content and usually are green (vegetables, fruits, kitchen waste, egg shells, used tea leaves, coffee grinds) -- to propagate.
5. One part brown material mixed with two parts green make the best compost.
6. Correct compost smells like healthy soil.

Takakura composting

1. Prepare Takakura Magic Basket.
2. Use mature compost (6-8 kg) as compost starter.
3. Cut small pieces (2 x 2 cm) of organic waste (fruit peels, egg shells, garden and kitchen leaves, rice, vegetables); discard broth in food for composting; do not use bones, shrimp or leftover meats/animal products in compost -- they attract flies
4. Make a well in the starter, put in waste in and mix.
5. Cover basket to warm mixture and prevent flies from laying eggs.
6. Optimum humidity is achieved when compost mixture is damp, but produces no dripping water when squeezed. Add rice hull or dry leaves if compost is watery, or sprinkle on a little water if compost is dry.
7. Stir regularly 2-3 times a week. Do not add more waste to a full basket -- remove the mixture to a bigger composter to add waste.
8. Compost is ripe when its temperature, appearance and smell resemble soil: in about eight weeks.

Tips

1. Get the entire family involved.
2. Put a pair of scissors on the dining table and get everyone to cut up their share of waste
3. Place Takakura baskets in several strategic areas in/around the house; those who enter the area are responsible for mixing the compost.

From: The Jakarta Post, February 11, 2008

Integrated Waste Management?

If we want to start our waste management program, we need to plan it well. The plan should consider all aspects, from the first steps of examining and separating our waste to the actual how to recycle or to produce anything useful as the end products. Why is this plan important? Because we need to make sure that our program can actually work. It is sad to know that there are some communities work hard to educate people the importance of waste separating, recycling or composting, while the local authorities haven't even come up with any plan of waste management. People actually separate their waste, but unfortunately after that, the garbage truck mix it back again. So, we need to plan what to do with our separated waste. Working together with our community is one way to make a different..