Learn to reduce your food waste and help divert organic waste from our local landfills! Join I Love A Clean San Diego for our free Save Your Scraps workshop at the Alta Vista Botanical Gardens on Saturday, August 24 at 10:30 a.m. During this workshop, we’ll cover:
How to reduce food waste when grocery shopping and cooking
The pros and cons of different styles of composting
Why it’s so important to keep organic waste out of landfills
How to properly dispose of food waste through the curbside organic recycling program
Attendees will have the opportunity to make and take home a vermicomposting bin during the workshop – all supplies will be provided to start easily composting at home! Please note that supplies are limited to one bin per household, with priority given to residents of the City of Vista.
Registration is required. Thank you to the City of Vista for sponsoring this event!
Learn to reduce your food waste and divert organic waste from our local landfills! Join I Love A Clean San Diego for our free Too Good To Waste: Food Recovery Workshop at Lindo Lake County Park on Saturday, March 16, at 10 a.m. During this workshop, we’ll cover:
Tips to reduce waste when grocery shopping, cooking, and storing food
Different styles of composting
Why it’s so important to keep organic waste out of the landfill
How to properly dispose of food waste through the curbside organic waste recycling program
Attendees will have the opportunity to make and take home a vermicomposting bin during the workshop – all supplies will be provided to start easily composting at home! Please note that supplies are limited to one bin per household, with priority given to residents of the unincorporated County of San Diego.
Registration is required. Thank you to the County of San Diego for sponsoring this event!
Learn to reduce your food waste and help divert organic waste from our local landfills! Join I Love A Clean San Diego for our free Save Your Scraps workshop at the Alta Vista Botanical Gardens on Saturday, August 26 at 10 a.m. During this workshop, we’ll cover:
Tips to reduce waste when grocery shopping, cooking, and storing food
Different styles of composting
Why it’s so important to keep organic waste out of the landfill
How to properly dispose of food waste through the curbside organic recycling program
Attendees will have the opportunity to make and take home a vermicomposting bin during the workshop – all supplies will be provided to start easily composting at home!
Registration is required. Thank you to the City of Vista for sponsoring this event!
Whether you’re a natural green thumb or you’re still just learning how to take care of a few houseplants, sustainable landscaping can be an intimidating undertaking! Join I Love A Clean San Diego as we break down the topic in our Sustainable Landscaping webinar on Thursday, January 19th from 5:00 – 6:00PM. This will be a great webinar for people with gardens and yards of all sizes, even potted gardens on a small balcony!
We’ll focus on:
Water conservation tips
Yard erosion control
Gardening habits to avoid or adopt
Storage and disposal of fertilizers and pesticides
Yard waste disposal through the new curbside organics recycling program
Learn more about how engaging with our land intentionally helps to keep it healthy and sustainable! This event is free to attend and open to all. Please register to receive the link to join. A recording of the webinar and resources will be shared to all registrants after the event, so we encourage you to register even if the event timing doesn’t work for your schedule. We can’t wait to see you virtually on January 19th! Thank you to the City of San Diego Environmental Services Department for sponsoring this event.
Today’s blog comes from our Hotline Manager, Amanda!
Earlier this year, our Hotline Manager, Amanda, wanted to increase her composting knowledge, much like our Education Manager and Master Composter-in training, Erika. After taking a series of classes, Amanda wanted to share these two new methods that are great for small spaces. Read on to learn the basics of two innovative composting methods; perhaps you’ll find one that works for you!
Many of you already know about traditional backyard composting, but there are other options out there to help you recycle your organics at home. Today, I’ll cover some basics on two composting methods you may not have heard of yet: vermicomposting and bokashi.
Erika keeps her vermicompost under her desk and just as it should, it doesn’t smell!
Vermicomposting is a method of composting where organic material is broken down through the use of worms, red wigglers and red tigers being the best types of worms for this method. Vermicomposting is a great option for apartment and condo dwellers or those that do not have yard waste available. It can be done on a small scale (even under your kitchen sink!). Mostly food scraps are added to the vermicompost bin, as opposed to traditional composting where large amounts of carbon rich yard waste is needed. Vermicompost bins are available for purchase, and some residents may even be able to purchase subsidized bins – click here to see if you qualify! Or if you are feeling handy and you want to build your own vermicompost bin, check out some basic instructions from the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation.
Practice makes perfect! At this station, kids learned how to sort out compostable vs. non-compostable items.
I Love A Clean San Diego has also integrated our newly acquired composting knowledge into some of our education offerings as well! Recently, we partnered with the City of Chula Vista & the Chula Vista Recreation Department to augment their youth after-school program, Empower Hour. ILACSD educators lead several hands-on activities during May & June to cover topics such as waste diversion, recycling and composting. During the composting activities, the kids learned how to sort recyclables from compostable materials, and even got their hands dirty during the compost bin and worm discovery activities. If you’re interested in learning more about our education presentations, please contact our Education Manager, Erika at education@cleansd.org!
Here’s ILACSD’s Program Assistant, Joseph leading the worm exploration station!
Here are 7 tips to maintaining your vermicompost bin:
1. Worms don’t have lungs, they breathe thru their skin. Fats and oil will coat their skin and they can no longer breathe, so avoid putting fatty or oily foods in your vermicompost bin.
2. Worms don’t like motion, vibration or extreme heat/cold.
3. Your bin should never smell, an odor would likely mean you are over feeding your worms.
4. If you are adding watery food, add some paper as well.
5. Moldy food is ok to add, the bacteria actually helps give the worms a head start on digesting the food.
7. Food scraps are best in smaller pieces.
Are you ready to start composting? Find local resources, such as bins, worms and classes near you at www.WasteFreeSD.org!
Bokashi is another composting method where you can pickle your food waste and thus store for later use in your traditional compost pile. What makes it unique is, unlike traditional composting, dairy, meat and bones can be used with this method. An inoculant, a combination of anaerobic microbes, is used to pickle the food waste and are available for sale online or you can also find online tutorials. Once you get your inoculated grain/paper and a 5gal bucket (or larger!) you are ready to go.
Simply add your food waste to the bucket and some inoculated gain/paper as you go along. After you bucket is full, it will take ten days to two weeks for your pickled food scraps are ready to be added to your traditional compost bin. As you are adding to your bokashi bin, place a plate on top to keep pests away. If you see white mold it is ok, only be concerned if you see green ,red or brown mold. Bokashi workshops are offered by Solana Center for Environmental Innovation, but keep an eye out for them on www.WasteFreeSD.org because they fill up fast!
Today’s blog comes from our Education Manager, Erika. Earlier this year, Erika took it upon herself to find new ways to reduce the amount of waste she creates each day – she signed up for a composting course! Now that she is on her way to becoming a Master Composter, she wants to share what she has learned in hopes of inspiring you to take a composting course near you! Read on to learn more about how food waste impacts our landfills and how you can become a skilled composter as well!
A rind is a terrible thing to waste, so do something! Join the Master Composters!
Here at I Love A Clean San Diego, many of my coworkers and I feel strongly about waste reduction. In the past few years, I have seen my own transition from using some disposable items in my life. An example being bringing my stainless steel pint glass to the Adventure Run last week, so that I wouldn’t have to use a disposable plastic cup for that IPA at the end of the race. While I have been able to carry my bamboo cutlery and stainless steel straw around, I noticed that I was still creating quite a bit of waste – food waste. In San Diego, we lead the country in per capita waste, with disposing about 1.3 million pounds in 2012. Of that trash, a 2012-2013 study showed that food represented the most prevalent material composed in our landfill, accounting for 15% of the total waste stream. In residential waste, that percentage increased to 18%. After learning these startling statistics, I realized there is so much more that I can do with regard to waste reduction. So, with waste in my mind, I signed up for a Master Composting class.
Hands on learning is always best!
Last October, my friend, @girlforaccleanworld, and I joined with a dozen other composting inquirists, skeptics, novices, and enthusiasts to begin our composting journey to potential Mastery. At first, I was quite anxious. I previously had a horrific experience with a vermicompost, resulting in [read quickly] maggots and other vermin. Needless to say, I was apprehensive but determined to further reduce my waste through composting. The great thing about the course is that there is such a great variety in reasons why people compost – from professional development, to reducing waste, to ameliorating compost gone wrong, to education – there were people from all walks of life. Another great thing about the course is its hands on approach. On the first day, we were already getting our hands dirty, layering greens (food scrapes, grass clippings, etc.) and browns (cardboard, paper, other wood products). Each week, we measured the temperature and moisture of the bin, turned it, and looked for grubs – ok, that might have just been me. I was captivated by how clean everything was and how quickly different items could degrade. While I learned a lot in the class, the take home for me was:
• Anything and everything (natural) will eventually turn to compost, it just is a matter of time.
• You can be active or passive, it will still turn to compost
• Compost does not smell – if it smells, give it a turn, it needs to breath
• Composting doesn’t need a ton of space, especially vermicomposting
Since completion, I have been working toward 30 hours community composting service to become an official Master. I have become more conscious of my grocery shopping, as to not buy more than I need, and have been able to help people out with their composting woes. I would highly recommend the class to anyone. For more information visit http://www.thelivingcoast.org/programs/composting-programs/. There is also a 5 week long composting workshop available through the Solana Center that starts on April 11th. For additional information please click here.
Let’s work together to minimize our food waste! Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for helpful tips and tricks about how to reduce waste in your life!
Photo Credit: @girlforaccleanworld. Thanks for allowing us to use these great photos!
