Composting

I posted a recently about Sweden's success in recycling virtually all of their country's garbage. One element of household waste that draws less attention is that of leftover food.

Our neighborhood in London ran a food waste collection program. We were given a bucket for all organic waste, which was collected weekly. It was surprising to us how much of our weekly garbage was made up of simple things like potato peelings, chicken bones, and grapefruit rinds!

Minimizing our garbage is important when living out on Aspö. I'd love to collect and compost our food waste there. We'd have less to throw away, and we could supplement our meager soil for planting. The problem is we're there infrequently, and aren't able to maintain a compost heap.

I read recently about a new household gadget that does a quick and simple job of handling food waste.

The Food Cycler will take a bucketful of cooked or uncooked food, and in about three hours, turn it into dried and sanitized compost.

I really like the idea. After all, I love my gadgets! The idea of throwing away less, while creating compost for our plantings, fits our needs perfectly.

There are a few snags, though, First, at $600, the device is expensive. It also uses a lot of energy, which drives cost as well.

But I think these sorts of units will develop and become more efficient and less costly. I can imagine we'd be buying something like this for our stuga a few years from now.