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Sustainability

The Uncommon Life

A Composter’s Dilemma

May 17, 2010

In preparation for Compostapalooza, our partnership with Quirky to create the ultimate composting product, we’re running a series of compost education posts. Read up, then put those brainstorming caps on for kick-off on May 17!

compost

I got into composting in 2008.  I had never seriously considered doing it until I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma (by Michael Pollan) earlier that year – it helped me understand the food cycle and how throwing organic material into landfill was a lousy solution.  Sanitation departments waste a lot of energy, money and land carting away food scraps that could otherwise be enriching the soil.

However, like recycling, composting is more work than just throwing something away, especially if you’re an urban dweller like me. To start with, you have to take the food waste and put it in a separate bin (no big deal).  But you also need to cut up the food waste into small pieces to help it break down faster and then put the compostable material into some vessel outdoors. We were lucky to have a few friends and neighbors that were interested in the same thing and were able to convince our building to provide us with an outdoor space to place a compost tumbler.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our sons knew all about composting from school and were only too happy to tell daddy everything he was doing wrong, which was plenty. There was nothing they enjoyed more than catching me putting compostable material into the trash.  I then had to dig through the garbage to find the food scraps and move them to the compost bin.  I learned the messy way that tea bags, coffee grounds and egg shells were all fine for composting.

Compost

Read more about Dave’s adventures in composting!

The Uncommon Life

Compost & the City

May 13, 2010

In preparation for Compostapalooza, our partnership with Quirky to create the ultimate composting product, we’re running a series of compost education posts. Read up, then put those brainstorming caps on for kick-off on May 17!

compost

I’ve officially caught the compost bug.

I never thought I’d get much satisfaction from dumping smelly food scraps into a bin of other smelly food scraps. But sometimes I surprise myself.

I now bring my raw food scraps (i.e. fruits, vegetables, egg shells, tea bags) to my neighborhood community garden in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The scraps are then processed into compost that is used to nourish the vegetables and other plants in the garden with essential minerals.

I love the concept of making something useful from something we have no use for. We recycle paper and plastic. Why not food? Food waste accounts for the largest component of our trash each year.  Composting also reduces our need for chemically laden fertilizers, most of which are derived from oil.  And why pay for something you can get for free?


compost

I store my food scraps in the freezer. That way, you can enjoy the benefits of composting without the stink factor. I then make my weekly trip to the Garden of Union on Saturday morning. I simply look for the marked bin, add my scraps, and cover with sawdust. The sawdust helps keep rodents away and also ensures the proper chemical balance of carbon and nitrogen. And that’s it! I’m doing my part to reduce my footprint, and grow yummy food within my community.

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Design

Compostapalooza 2010

May 3, 2010

Quirky and UncommonGoods are proud to present… Compostapalooza!

On Monday, May 17th we will be joining forces with Quirky — a social product development company with a great community and fun, innovative products to boot — to create the world’s best composter! We like to think of it as a Compostapalooza!

The mission: to create a useful, interesting, one-of-a-kind composter for indoors, outdoors or both. To enter this crazy earth-lovin’, garbage-hatin’ contest, just complete your submission and post it on Quirky between May 17-26 for a chance to have your design come to life.

Is this mission impossible? Of course not! With composting on the rise across the country, it seems that everybody’s doing it and tons of people have ideas on how to create the ideal composter or at least improve current models.

But, first things first, you gotta get hip to the dirty details of composting. For the skinny on how to compost, what to compost and where to compost, Quirky has you covered. Check out these informative posts on Composting 101.

compost cycle
The Uncommon Life

It Ain’t Easy…

April 21, 2010

As Kermit the Frog so wisely said, “It ain’t easy being green.” That’s especially true when you work at UncommonGoods.

Three years ago, UG packed up in Manhattan and headed south to an emerging neighborhood in Brooklyn – Sunset Park – home to amazing tacos, friendly neighbors, few trees and tons of concrete. It also houses the Brooklyn Army Terminal, a massive penitentiary-style complex that served as the largest military supply base in the U.S. through WWII and is now the headquarters of businesses ranging from a family diner to a division of the NYPD. While functional, it’s not exactly stunning.

We want our enthusiasm for our company to shine inside the office and out. So here at BAT we are doing what we can with what we’ve got. A plot of dirt among the sidewalk? We’ll take it! A corner in the lobby for a potted plant? Don’t mind if we do.

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