Composting!!

In honor of Earth Day, I thought I would try to post something earthy, so let's talk about compost.

First: my enviro disclaimer:
I consider myself to be a bit of a lapsed environmentalist - it was very important to me when I was in my 20s, so I got a couple degrees in environmentally stuff, and then sort of burned out. I found the obsession of other environmentalists to be overwhelming, and didn't like the idea that for many issues, there just isn't a good answer and tradeoffs were often as bad or worse. I have been slowly trying to get back into the swing of things in a balanced way, looking at one aspect of our lives at a time. First, we adopted a Meatless Monday and mostly organic diet, then I upgraded all of our cleaning and personal use chemicals when I was first pregnant and still feeling productive (here). This year is all about reducing our trash, and specifically compost. I do not want to be preachy - and in fact really despise unsolicited advice -- so please don't take this as a preachy holier-than-thou thing. My goal in most life aspects is to try to make one small step towards doing a better job- so this is just the smallish step for us for this year.

Why Compost?
Generally, most food scraps and yard clippings are sent away in our trash and ultimately sent to a landfill. This is a problem for a couple reasons:

1. Food waste and yard clippings are currently 20-30% of the volume of our trash. Many cities, and large East Coast ones in particular, are out of places to put their trash, so they truck it many miles to mega-landfill facilities. Not only does this mean that we're turning more nice land into really gross land, but we're burning more fossil fuels to get it there.
2. Once it arrives at a landfill, the organic materials are covered with other trash, preventing a free flow of air, so they decompose anaerobically (meaning without oxygen). This type of decomposition produces methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, 20x more powerful than plain carbon dioxide. If those same materials are able to decompose aerobically (in the presence of oxygen), then they instead produce carbon dioxide, which is less potent. 
3. Farming is roughly a process by which seedlings pull nutrients and water out of the soil in order to build big nutrient-rich things like leaves and fruits.  So, the soil left behind is inherently less nutrient-dense because the nutrients are in the leaves and stems and tomatoes. So the farmer has to add back nutrients through the process of fertilization, which can be done with organic or otherwise friendly materials, or can be done with some really strong chemical fertilizers that often just run straight into our waterways creating other havoc downstream.  (This isn't true of all plants - some plants actually pull nutrients out of the air and put them in the soil - but they usually aren't food plants and I would say they are generally not very attractive plants either, so not stuff you likely want to grow in your garden).

Instead, we can take those yard scraps and food waste, let them decompose in oxygen-rich air, keep them out of the landfills, and stick the nutrients back in our yard so that we don't need a lot of other fertilizers. AKA, composting.

look at this fun flower

Previous Attempts:
So I have really wanted to compost for a long time - I actually took a college class on farming and found the whole process to be really inspiring. I waited patiently through several apartment years, and when we finally bought our house - I bought a composter that day. It arrived in early January - long before we'd unpacked any boxes or we'd even really looked at the yard or thought about the garden. I put the massive thing together, hauled it outside, and immediately started dumping our kitchen scraps into it. I bought a little ceramic vessel to sit on the counter and collect the scraps until I could eagerly carry them outside to put them in the composter. I cannot express to you how excited I was to finally get started.

But it didn't work as well as I had hoped. First, I would forget to empty the counter-top container, which would inevitably fill up with bugs and slime. Second, I would forget to water or turn the composter, so it dried out and didn't do anything. Third, I failed to add other types of materials, so the composter started to smell and get gross. Spouso has been threatening to get rid of the thing since it arrived, which is heartbreaking - so this year I'm committed to making this thing actually work.

better soil makes prettier flowers

Research:
I really want this to work this time, so I started out with some basic research. I found a bunch of great sites, here, here and here. The gist is pretty simple:

• You need a space for the compost to go. If you have a big yard, then you can just dump it on the ground or in a fenced-off area, but if you don't have a lot of space or live in a city, then you probably want a tumbler like mine.
• You need a mix of materials. "Green" materials are nitrogen dense, like kitchen scraps. They need to be balanced with "Brown" materials, which are carbon dense, like leaves and paper. You don't want anything with meat, dairy or animal waste or you'll attract rats, and you do want the materials to be chopped up or this will take forever.
• For this equation to work, it needs plenty of water and oxygen, so keep the pile moist and turn it often.

A Second Try:
So, with the wisdom of my prior mistakes, I've been slowly trying this again for the past couple months or so. I moved the composter to a new location, closer to the hose so it can get watered more regularly, but hidden from sight. Instead of the counter-top container that didn't get emptied often enough, I've been using a colander. It just collects the scraps of the day and gets dumped during the evening kitchen cleanup, so nothing has enough time to get nasty, and I can't forget to empty it because I can see the grossness clearly. Every week, I add whatever paper was shredded and some torn-up news print, plus a good douse of water and then I give it a couple turns.

this morning's kitchen scraps

So far, we're doing ok. It doesn't smell and doesn't seem to attract any vermin. There are a few bugs in the composter, but they aren't coming outside or causing issues and appear to be the correct ones that are needed for this process to work. If all goes well, I should have my first batch in a couple months, hopefully during the summer so that I have time to start a second batch.

the composter is tucked away in the corner- mostly out of sight

Concluding Thoughts:
The downfall of my early environmentalism was the feeling that you had to be 100% consistent and get it perfect, or there was no point in trying. Obviously, that's stupid. Just because I don't like to eat salads for every meal doesn't mean that I give up vegetables altogether and eat nothing but pizza-wrapped bacon cookies. (mmmm- now i'm totally thinking about it).  Like everything else that we know we should do - it's better to do a little than nothing at all. So, I'm giving this another go and hoping that it works this time. Happy Earth Day!

Cleaning Up Our Cleaning Products

As our renovation is nearing its end, I've been thinking a lot about cleaning. Maybe it's the solid sheet of dust covering everything in the house, or the fact that dozens of strange men have been using my bathroom, but I'm ready to do some deep cleaning. Not only do I want to clean everything, I want to clean the way I clean everything.

When it comes to cleaning products, I've been ignoring my environmental roots and just buying random stuff. Not only do the products we use have potential health impacts on us, but as they wash down the drain, they can have serious impacts on the watersheds they end up in. Here in DC, we have a serious problem with water quality, so I think it's time I paid more attention.

The Anacostia River has been seriously polluted for years. While DC local government has taken some bold steps to reduce pollution, by requiring a 5-cent charge for plastic bags, and recently outlawing Styrofoam containers, it remains a heavily polluted waterway. This is not a river you want to swim in. In fact, Marion Barry, one of our esteemed city council members said, "I'm looking forward to the day I can fish in the Anacostia and at one point, I can eat the fish I catch." Gross.

So, to help out, I'm going to start making more of an effort to reduce our environmental impact, with particular focus on water quality. First up- I'm reassessing our household chemicals.

Step 1. Take Stock of What We Have
I started out by rounding up everything we've got, from the kitchen to the bathroom, the utility closet and the laundry closet. My first discovery was that we have a whole lot of stuff, most of which doesn't even get used. Then, because not all chemicals are bad chemicals, I spent some time trying to figure out what chemicals are problematic, and found the the Environmental Working Group's database which rates cleaning products and cosmetics by their environmental impacts. My second big discovery was that a lot of the chemicals I'd bought because they claimed to be environmentally friendly, really weren't.

Our dish washing stuff - average score = D

 

Abundance of house-cleaning stuff  - average score = D- 

 

Laundry products - average score = D-

 

bathroom cleaners - average score = D

 

massive abundance of personal products, average score = 4.6 / 10 (where 0 is best)

So, the worst offenders in my products included these compounds and chemical families:

• Fragrance - this is a mysterious collection of unnamed chemicals that can cause asthma, irritate skin, and may cause reproductive issues in fish. They are added to almost everything to make products smell nicer.
• Parabens - mimic estrogen and disrupt the endocrine and reproductive systems, also kill coral. Added to products as an anti-fungal preservative, appear in most lotions and deodorants.   
• Formaldehyde Releasers - this group of chemicals slowly release formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen in humans. They are added as an antimicrobial preservative and were present in my shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion.  
• Phthalates - another endocrine disrupter linked to infertility in men, recently banned from use in children's toys. Added as a plasticizer in products like nail polish and to preserve fragrance.
• Triclosan - linked to lower thyroid hormones and testosterone, and contribute to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Interferes with the development of tadpoles in ecosystems. Often found in antibacterial soaps because of its antibacterial qualities.

Step 2. Find New Stuff
So, feeling pretty grossed out by my stuff, I set on a quest to find new stuff. The parameters:

1. It has to work. I still need to look pretty and don't want a house full of grime.
2. It has to be decently good for the environment, but not perfect. (0-2 for personal product, A-B for house products)
3. It has to be accessible. I'm not driving across the country for anything or paying twice as much.

After quite a bit more searching on their database and googling around, I settled on a couple new companies:

• Aveda for hair care products because they don't use parabens, phthalates or formaldehyde-releasers, and there's a salon on my home from work. (Also use recycled plastic for bottles and support renewable energy).
• Yes to Carrots for face products without fragrance, parabens, phthalates, or formaldehydes, available at Amazon. (Also support feeding children around the world).
• Honest Company for other skin care, also without all those things and available at Amazon. (Also support renewable energy and recycled packaging). 
• Even though this is getting a little off the original topic, I found that one of my makeup brands, BareMinerals, is actually great, even though it doesn't claim to be enviro-friendly. So I'm doubling down on them and getting rid of my other random assortment of makeup.
• For household stuff, I'm going with Whole Foods 365 for all-purpose spray and window cleaner, and 7th Generation for laundry and dish detergent. Both are lines available at our local Whole Foods store.
• [I'm sure there are other good companies too, these are just the ones that stood out to me.]

Step 3. Out with the Old
For most of the products, I just made a concerted effort to use things up. I was cleaned, exfoliated and moisturized like nobody's business. The house got scrubbed, shined and polished. Some of the nastier chemicals went in the trash. Eventually all the old stuff was gone.

Step 4. In with the New
Then we went shopping. Because I picked products that are easily available, it was just a matter of heading to our local shops and picking up the extra items, or adding them onto another amazon order. (I'm not thrilled to have to buy some of these things online, which requires fuel to ship and boxes to package. I'm rationalizing that as long as I was planning to order something from Amazon already, (and assuming that they minimize fuel use and packing material), then it's ok.

new house products - average score = A-

new personal products -  average score = 1.4/10

Next Steps.
So, I'm excited about my new products, and the notion that I don't have to spend this much effort every time I buy something from now one. I'm thrilled to have fewer products that take up less space than their predecessors.  I'm also a little excited to start putting some more effort into environmentalism. Not to get sanctimonious on you, but I invite you to look up your products. Beware, it's easy to get a little sucked in/carried away. Search household cleansers here and personal products here.