Over a year ago I posted about starting a compost pile in my back yard. I started out with several biodegradable lawn bags full of leaves and added kitchen scraps as I went along. Eventually, we made an area for the pile and put it all together. I used an old coffee can to collect the kitchen scraps and dumped it when it was full (or started stinking). I can’t say it was the best system, but it worked.

A few month down the road, I was contacted by BuyGreen.com. BuyGreen.com invited me to try out one of their products and I came across the BioBag MaxAir II Composting Buckets.  This bucket and the BioBags included, stepped up my composting efforts in the kitchen.

Kitchen food waste can build up bacterial odor quickly when collected in a solid plastic or ceramic pail. The reason is food waste creates heat and moisture that can not escape when placed in these closed containers. Many modern collection pails contain charcoal filters or other devices to help mask the odor, but do little to slow the rotting process. The Max Air buckets are ventilated on all sides, including the top and bottom, allowing food waste to breathe.

True to it’s claim, I was able to collect more scraps without stinking up the house. Additionally, it became a cleaner process since the scraps were contained in the mini trash bag. This eliminated the need to gag my way though washing out rotting food from the coffee cans.  Overall, this bucket streamlined my efforts and made it become a habit, rather then a chore. I’m glad I picked this product to check out. A little advice, the Biobags are very thin and start to biodegrade very quickly, don’t let your scraps get too heavy or wait too long, they may break through when you try to remove them.

Over a year later and I have a nice pile started. I recently dug down to the bottom and pulled out some nice dark soil to put around our apple tree.  Composting has been a success in our home. It’s a small effort anyone can do to make a difference.

Do you compost? Comment with any tips and tricks you may have.

In compliance with FTC Guildlines, please note that this is a sponsored post.  I was given these products to test and review free of charge.  However, I was not paid for the review and the opinions are my own.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

What’s In Your Trash? A Review

So,  let’s rewind once more. I made 3 commitments for 2009:

• Reduce – buy a reusable coffee filter and reduce paper waste. – Done!
• Reuse – Work at remembering my reusable shopping bags when I go to the store! – Still working on it.
• Recycle – I would like to try to start a compost pile. I’d love to have one of those cool expensive tumblers, but I guess I’ll go the old fashion route. – As of today this is DONE!

Yep, I really took my time on the last one.  However, this morning my girls were “pretending” to plant flowers in the dirt we will one day call grass and as I headed to town promising to bring them back a treat I decided to buy them something real to grow. So, while I walked around Target grabbing some flower seeds and gardening tools I came across some biodegradable paper bags for leaf composting. There was 5 in the pack for $2.99 , how could I pass that up.

So, as the girls broke up the dirt around our twin oak (it starts as one and splits into two trees) my son and I loaded up 5 huge compost bags full of leaves. Then I went in the house, shredded cardboard in the recycle pile, grabbed coffee grounds from the coffee maker and cut tops off 2 quarts of strawberries. Finally spraying it all down with water. There we go, let’s see what we get as we continue to add to the bags!

Moving forward, I plan to ask Troy  to take some of the trees left in the back of the property and make a Lincoln log type bin to dump all my efforts in.

We’ll see how it goes from here and keep you posted!
Grow Green!

Jen

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Got Trash?

So, what will your Green Steps be for 2009?  I have the 3 R’s covered for 2009:

• Reduce – buy a reusable coffee filter and reduce paper waste.
• Reuse – Work at remembering my reusable shopping bags when I go to the store!
• Recycle - I would like to try to start a compost pile.  I’d love to have one of those cool expensive tumblers, but I guess I’ll go the old fashion route.

What green steps will you try to make in 2009? Please share by leaving a comment below!  All the best in 2009!

Jen

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Your Green Steps for 2009?