Promoting Composting
A little while ago I was wandering around the City of Vancouver’s website, specifically the parks and engineering services sections. Seems a little bizzare, I know, but I then happened upon this website. Apparently the City of Vancouver in their effort to cut back waste, has been offering extremely affordable composters and vermicomposters.
The composters go for $25 (in a gardening store ones of these quality would be over $50), and the vermicomposters also go for $25, but require you to take a seminar to learn how to take care of your worms.
I’d like to see more cities doing this, and I’d like to see Vancouver advertising this more. I think a lot more people would be composting if they knew that they had cheap composting options available to them.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I totally agree Kelly. A few more thoughts though, I really wish they would offer a delivery service on the composters/vermicomposters. As it is, you have to go out to the transfer station (which for those who don’t know is on the very edge of town) and I’m not convinced that all folks who want to compost have access to cars. Even if it cost a bit more or they just did a delivery 2x a year or something I think that would be great.
The other kudos I will give the city is that your composter comes with a Hotline Number. For real. And if you have any questions you can call for info. I called once wondering, on the off chance if they had any advice for a fruitfly invasion (mid summer) and they were awesome! I half expected to wait on hold, get some bogus tape-recording or something, but I got to talk to an excellent gal who was really helpful and friendly, and full of ideas and enthusiasm. It was great.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Good point Emira, it would be nice if they had a delivery service. I certainly don’t have a car, and if I did have means to get to the transfer station, I most definitely would get one of the composters.
That’s awesome about the hotline - it’s so worth it to get one of those bins or vermicomposters if you have the means to get one.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:09 pm
have you guys heard about this book put out with cityfarmer? it’s called “the diary of a compost hotline operator”, and is about the years spent manning the cityfarmer compost hotline in vancouver.
there’s a bit about on the cityfarmer website and you can get it on amazon too, though i’m sure it’s available at the library. i really hope to read it someday…
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
To my knowledge, there’s no such project in Milan, Italy where I live. People here do it in the country, though. It would be great if more people composted, not just for the sake of the environment and city revenues but for us composters, ourselves. I have to dump my veggie scraps into my balcony compost bin only under the cover of darkness due to neighbors who think I dump garbage there and never take it out:) Wrote a post about it here: http://porcinichronicles.blogspot.com/2005/12/susan-campbell-stealth-composter.html
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Question to Emira (or Kelly or anybody else who may know),
What did the compost hotline person say about what to do with fruit fly infestations? I’ve been having that problem too.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I agree more cities should be doing this…here in Ontario my regional waste site has their compost giveaways this weekend. The composters are free (and with worms for Vermicomposting), to the first 100 people. But just like everywhere else you do have to attend a seminar and the waste/recycling plant is outside of town.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
The Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator was written by Spring Gillard, who also works for Evergreen (www.evergreen.ca), an amazing non-profit environmental organization. Among other wonderful things, they work to promote ecological gardening. Their website has lots of fab info.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
There are deals like that scattered all over. I was just visiting Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and they were promoting the local composting class/bin deal. $20.00 if you are local. A great deal!
January 15th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Here’s some interesting information for you:
did you know that Edmonton has the largest composting facility in North America?
www.edmontoneducates.com