Winter Kitchen Composting - February 2023

This past week, there was a bunch of online/tech chatter about a new (just emerged from stealth mode) hardware + services startup called Mill.  It is from the founder of Nest, who's thermostat changed that entire product category, so the history of success instantly gives this new thing - a composting bin + a service to take your food waste - some credibility.  Mill is a super-fancy kitchen composter that basically cooks your food waste to ensure the bin doesn't start stinking.  

#13 on this past year's list was to do more with composting - including under the sink kitchen food waste.  I have the bin, I just stopped filling it in not for any particular reason.

The Mill news was enough to nudge me back into the kitchen scrape food waste game.  It didn't take long to fill the little bin with vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee grinds and house plant foliage.  

I used a compostable bag to line the bin, but it was *so* compostable that it had already started to break down in the bin and started to leak.  So, I hauled the whole bin out there and dumped it on the top of the carbon bin.  Here's what that looked like:

The USDA and the EPA says that food waste is the single largest category of items that go into landfills - which then create a bunch of methane emissions.  I understand why that motivates some folks.  I do. 

But, it feels so far-off (in terms of outcomes) to me.  That's...maybe a nice side benefit.  But, composting is a choice.  It *is* easier to just toss in the trash.  

What's the primary benefit (for me)?  To get me back in the composting game?

Black gold, baby!  Black gold.

If I can make more compost and speed up the process by adding nitrogen (greens via food waste), what's not to like.  That mean....I can spend less $$$ in buying it.  That's motivation enough for me.