Our homes generate wet waste and dry waste every day. Wet waste is usually the kitchen waste like discarded vegetable/fruits, leftover food, etc. Dry waste is the package wrappers, newspapers, metal cans etc.
In our apartment complex, dry waste recycling is happening in a major way. One key aspect of dry waste is that we will need a 3rd party vendor to recycle it. But wet waste recycling does not have any such external dependency. Each resident can generate compost from their own daily wet waste. Yes, it takes 5 minutes of effort each day, but it is worth it!
Inspired by few other residents, we started wet waste composting in our home in February. This is a 3 stage process.
- In stage-1, we fill a bucket/bin with kitchen waste every day. This goes on for 2 or 3 weeks.
- In stage-2, we do nothing. Just leave the bucket closed for 2 weeks. This results in a pickle.
- In stage-3, this pickle is mixed with a compost starter and left alone for another 2 weeks. Post that, you get the compost which can be given to plants in our home or even to plants outside. A part of the compost thus formed can be used again as input in stage-3.
We used a compost kit sold by TrustBin (https://www.trustbasket.com/pages/compost-bin-online). It costs a little money but comes with everything we need. They also provide a detailed instruction set on how to do it.
Our experiment was assumed to be a failure and we forgot about the bucket after stage-3. But recently, we opened the bucket accidentally and realized compost is a grand success! For us, it is a matter of extreme pride that we managed to avoid sending 3 weeks of wet waste to the GHMC landfill in Jawahar nagar.
ACL goes green 