We were recently notified that our food waste recycling would start accepting biodegradable bags for packing our food waste in. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to read this! When we first starting recycling our food waste, I diligently put all our food scraps in BioBags to keep the bugs down and keep our yard waste container tidy. Well, after a few weeks we started getting flagged that we weren't allowed to use them as they hadn't tested them in the composting facility and weren't sure if they'd break down. I was a bit peeved by the process, but I stored the BioBags away for another time.
Fast forward about 2.5 years and, hooray!, now we can use them. I sure would have liked that approval earlier this spring since we've been dealing with hoards of evil microscopic fruit flies. But, I must admit, I have become quite skilled at snagging them out of the air with one hand. Just call me Mrs. Miyagi!
6 comments:
That's good news as far as the bio bags go, but they are still wasteful, too. Purchasing something specifically to throw it away?
Why not just dump the yard waste from your kitchen each day, let the flies live outside and not bother spending money on garbage?
Ooh! This is good to know! I hadn't heard. I was thinking about taking biobags to class and collecting my cohort's compostables. I think someone actually told me to "get over it" when I made a comment about seeing all of their yard waste items in the trash!! Regular Education field is so much different from the environmental education field!
Also, seriously! What has been up with the fruit flies? My roommate found a lovely concoction of apple cider vinegar, water and soap, put it in a jar and topped it off with a funnel made out of paper so the buggers can't figure out how to get out....fabulous trap!
I guess I'm "with" the artist, because I don't understand why your food scraps aren't being dumped on your compost pile, either.
???
I put my food scraps in the freezer in old margarine containers saved for this purpose until Sunday comes and I take it all to the composter. No flies, and the scraps actually break down faster once they've gone through the freeze/thaw cycle.
I think Crunchy is saving her scraps for her community composting program, no?
For times we tend to have hoards of fruit flies (Peach canning season) we keep a vacuum in the kitchen with the the long tube attachment on, and every once in awhile turn it on and suck them up. Just tap where they are, and get them when they fly up.
the artist - the BioBags go in our Yard Waste bin of stuff that gets composted at a central (county-wide) facility. I do empty our food scraps container from the kitchen every day into the bin, but the flies still manage to follow me in.
I also have a compost heap in the backyard that, even without the food scraps, is starting to resemble a small VW bug.
We have a lot of yard waste, needless to say, and adding food waste on top of it would be overwhelming to say the least. And, I live in the city, so I don't have a lot of space for the Mt. Everest of compostables we manage to produce.
I won't always use the BioBags (I bought them when we lived in a house where a compost pile was out of the question), but it's nice to know I can when I want to!
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