Don't you just love starting the day learning something new? We were listening to Marketplace on NPR this morning about Tess Vigeland's experiment to carry around all of the trash she produces for two weeks, when we noted a mention of something called a bokashi composting system.
Bokashi: Small Space Composting
This concoction of wheat bran, inocculated with molasses, water and microbes in a small bucket can actually break down organic trash items like chicken bones that are usually a big no-no with traditional composting methods. Meat scrapes, bones, and fish can all be thrown in, eventually creating a very bioactive soil compost to enrich your garden. Some great photos and detailed information here. If Tess Vigeland was truly hardcore, she'd carry her bokashi everywhere. It can't be any worse than carrying a bag filled with rotting non-composting chicken bones and trash!
Comments (6)
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I bought two of these Bokashi systems and they worked well. Scraps didn't smell rancid with the Bokashi concoction mixed in. Lids stayed on tight so the sweet smell didn't leak and attract flies. I missed a critical piece though: you need a garden to dump the final product into. I live in a cement condo complex with no garden so I couldn't do full justice to the process. I would empty a bucket in my folks' backyard whenever I visited (20 miles away), but once the buckets were full, they stayed full (at least until the next drop off).
view logarhythm's profile
logarhythm: How did your folks' backyard/garden look after being fed the fruits of your labour?
view gregory's profile
Wow, this is so cool. I'm a vermicomposting right now and even though I don't pay attention to the little critters as much as I should, they seem to be doing fine.
In fact, I should go feed them now.
view perejil's profile
oh thanks for posting this, I listened to the piece too, and I made a mental note to look it up on the website, but I read AT more than I read NPR, so thanks for doing the work!
view RJD's profile
gregory: Folks' garden looks good, but I can't take much credit. They've been composting in that backyard forever so the soil's already rich from decades of my family's scraps. I guess you can say the peel does not fall too far from the tree...
view logarhythm's profile
Can I suggest someone design a bokashi bucket that is a thing of beauty?
Something like the bokashi version of a Brabantia bin?
And with an more 'snappy', one-handed lid... those "ice cream tub" lids are a pain.
Not that I am complaining, I love Bokashi, but just as I like the earth beautiful, I like my kitchen beautiful, and I want the bokashi bin to be the object of desire that it deserves to be.
Perhaps this could harness our natural acquisitive tendencies to do good instead of harm?
Sorry if I'm shallow, but surely it can't be a bad thing to harness my 21st century consumerist tendencies and turn them into something that helps, not harms the environment!?
I paid £60 for my pair of bokashi bins and and if I find a pair that are beautiful if a little more expensive, then I'll pass the old ones on and thus convert more people to bokashi... sound fair!?
view sophe's profile