Do you have a compost bin? If not you should get one. Yesterday, in a unit in Balaclava, I had a beautiful dinner, lamb cutlets with vegetables and an avocado dip. (Please be aware that LOUD SPACE is aware of the fact that he is a hypocrite for talking about environmental issues while having had meat for dinner, moral and ethical issues aside.)
As I began to do the dishes and clean up the scraps of food, vegetable skins mostly, sliding them all into a plastic bag automatically, I felt a sudden anger take over me. Why? Because I knew I would soon throw the bags into a rubbish bin downstairs, carry on with my evening, while the rubbish waited to be deposited in a landfill, to fester underground for an undisclosed amount of time and I am only one individual with only a small amount of waste. Our city is a city of four million people.
In hindsight I should have taken the scraps and brought them home, to my own hungry compost bin, thus keeping the rubbish away from landfill. But the simple act of cleaning up last nights dinner, happened for a greater reason. It made me realise how much waste there is in our current consumerist society and the small steps individuals can take to minimise their damage to the environment. Eating less meat being one of them.
I have had a compost bin in operation at my house for the past four years now, it is filled with worms and now no food products at my house go to landfill. Everything goes into the compost bin. I have never had any problems with rats or mice as some sources have suggested. Compost bins are unique biological universes and should be considered essential to anyone living in the modern world.
A bin is relatively cheap at around $50. However as I cleared the food into the plastic bag (compost bins also avoid the use of plastic bags) I felt that local councils should be taking more active measures in helping reduce how much waste go to landfills. Can our rates not be used to offer citizens compost bins? The money saved from rubbish collections could potentially be used to finance this.
I have seen councils offer programs, where they will subsidise the price of compost bins, if not pay for them out right, but inevitably these offers have expiry dates, and it is my view that offers such as these should be offered indefinitely.
Unit or flats should not be excepted from this rule. As stated earlier in my post, I was in fact in a unit when I bagged up my rubbish last evening. As I went downstairs I wondered if there would be space for such a bin where the unit stood, or if the entire area would be covered in concrete. I was happy to see that indeed there was a huge patch of grass where a compost bin could be setup. Why was there not one there?
Ultimately it is very important that we start taking active steps to reduce the amount of rubbish we are sending to land fills. I have attached links at the bottom of this post to explain why.
It is important for us to consume less and become more conscious of how our decisions affect the world. I believe in the power of the invidual to make choices but if we are not able to take our responsibility seriously then government should take greater steps to making this a reality. Legislation should be put in place as it has been in San Francisco since last year where composting and the seperation of recycleables and food waste has become mandatory. If we are not willing to make changes our selves, I believe government must step up and make these decisions for us, for the betterment of ourselves and this world. What we need to do is ask ourselves and elected representatives is why is this not being done already?
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