Composting at the Cottage
Our cottage is located in Venice, which is part of Los Angeles County. Our location provides us access to the largest residential curbside recycling program in the United States, which gathers a variety of recyclables from over 750,000 households each week. Among these materials are those that can be tossed in the city’s “Green Bins.” These outdoor containers are reserved for yard clippings, branches, flowers, a variety of grasses, leaves, and fruits / vegetables from any source that have NOT been prepared for consumption and have NOT been partially consumed. But here at our tiny home/office, we still have so much waste left over that can’t be dropped in the bins… but it can be composted. So, when we started our garden makeover earlier this year, one of the things we knew we wanted to have out in the yard was a compact compost tumbler.
Per the EPA, food waste is the largest component within landfills in the USA. We’re hoping that by composting here at the Cottage (and sharing our journey as newcomers to the process) that we can do our part to help divert organic materials from landfills, and cut back on the energy use, wasted resources and emissions that result from hauling away so much organic material.
We’re in the first month of our city-life composting journey, and we have so much to learn. Many resources on the subject offer contrasting advice about what should go in a composter, and what ratios should be maintained. We look forward to discovering what works best for our lifestyle, environment, and gear.
We got a 33 gallon Jora Composter tumbler, which sits in our lil’ back garden. In the kitchen, we have a compostable countertop bin, which we fill up throughout the day before pouring it into the Jora at night.
We eat a vegetation diet, composed primarily of plant-based ingredients. Between those scraps and the greenery from our yard and my styling projects, the Jora is filling up quickly…. which helps us realize just how much unnecessary waste we were generating.
When it comes to food and beverage prep, we strive to stick strictly to refillable and reusable containers and accessories of all sorts.
This saves money and space, and — in my opinion— looks far more beautiful.
We’ll continue to study and try what we can, I’ll share future posts regarding what we learn from our method of composting here at our tiny cottage.
