
South Korea is composting its way to sustainability - hhs
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/09/how-south-korea-is-composting-its-way-to-sustainability
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durkie
If you're interested in learning more about this, the movie Wasted! (one of
Anthony Bourdain's last appearances before his death:
[https://www.wastedfilm.com/](https://www.wastedfilm.com/)) has interesting
perspectives on handling food waste around the world.

The segment on composting in South Korea is really cool, but the one on Japan
is really neat: they initially started diverting food waste and using it as
hog feed, which was a great way to divert it from the landfill. This then
blossomed in to a desire for pigs that had been fed only a certain type of
waste, so you can now purchase pork that was mainly fed leftovers from
pineapples, or pork that was mainly fed leftovers from sake production, and
it's created a whole separate boutique pork industry.

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11235813213455
I eat tons of fruits (currently mandarines) and I don't know if it's a good
thing but, instead of throwing the skins in the bin, I cut the skins in
smaller pieces, and scatter them in the nature. It seems to degrade quite
fast, it loses its bright color quickly at least

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pcurve
Yes! We do this with pretty much all vegetable, fruits, onion peels, egg
shells, etc.

Of course some fruits skin don't compost at all. Like watermelon skin,
pineapple leaves and skin, but you can definitely cut down on trash.

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soperj
I've composted all of those things. Even coconut husks. If you're doing it
right, it doesn't even take that long.

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neonate
[https://archive.md/nswgx](https://archive.md/nswgx)

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wyxuan
Seems similar to the approach used in palo alto, minus the RFID tech since you
can directly put into the recycling bin.

I think just having a bin there for you to use works as a reminder to use it
as a compost bin, no need for criminality or fines.

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ehnto
Bins and human nature are a surprisingly interesting topic. I would not draw
the same conclusion as you did for where I live. Having the bin there would
prompt -some- to use it, and they would probably use it wrong. Uncompostables
in the compost bin and so on. It always boggles my mind how otherwise
intelligent people in my life arrive at our colour coded bins, with clearly
marked instructions on the lid, and choose instead to use their trusty
intuition to sort the trash.

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tonyedgecombe
We've had food waste bins in my area (Oxfordshire, UK) for nearly a decade
now. As far as I can see it works really well, nearly everybody uses it.

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Arnt
That may or may mean that it works.

The usage later on may be more or less tolerant of what people actually put in
the bins.

Here, a lot of people throw food waste _in plastic bags_ in the bins, which
works about as well as you think. There are people who spend Monday to Friday
fishing around around in the compost by hand, fishing out and emptying the
bags. More thoughtful people throw food waste in compostable bags in the bins,
but those bags aren't quite compostable enough (the city composts for six
weeks, those bags need twelve at the very least) so those bags, too, have to
be fished out by hand.

It works. I imagine the cost could be lower and those poor people could be
employed in less soul-crushing work.

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Firadeoclus
Where I live, the guidance is actually that plastic bags are ok (yes, non-
biodegradable ones). Given that there is bound to be a certain amount of
contamination, including things that are harder to break down than the process
allows, I would imagine that mechanical separation is accepted as a required
part of the process.

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Arnt
Yes. I'm curious though — do you happen to know the end result of the process?

The compost makes earth, which can be used for something. Mechanical
separation leaves bits of torn plastic bags, whose number is a function of the
amount of plastic in the input and the effiency of the separation. What
"something" have they found that tolerates so much plastic that they don't
have to push down on the plastic in the input?

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James_Henry
Composting is great. One thing to note though is that compostable food
containers potentially not great because of the PFAS which could get into the
water supply and potentially make its way into plants.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190529084838.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190529084838.htm)

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ptah
i'm looking at getting worm composting going for food scraps. being vegan
means i can feed all my food scraps to the worms

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BiteCode_dev
I tried it and it has been very disappointing:

\- the worms are very fragile, so they must no be too cold, too hot, having
not enough food or too much of it or they die

\- it supposed to be able to be inside, with no fly. But having no fly
requires a very balanced PH, so if you mess up, you're gonna have a bad time

\- it's slow. In the summer, I eat so much fresh vegetables and fruits the
worms can't keep up.

Eventually I gave up.

The 2 setup that worked for me were:

\- I'm in a flat, but the gov have a composting spot for the whole street.
Common in Germany, very handy.

\- I'm in a house with a garden, then I just have a big pile to compost things
outside, no worms required. It's simple, no-maintenance, and handle up to 10
people green trash in the summer in the source of France.

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ptah
have you tried putting the worm bins directly into the soil with the bottom
cut out? It is a permaculture technique and i believe the soil keeps
temperature relatively stable. I am in scotland and it never gets below -4
degrees celsius or above 25.

something like this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pEq2QkBG4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pEq2QkBG4U)

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BiteCode_dev
In this case, no need for worms.

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ip26
The "wild" worms are the wrong type for this job.

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BiteCode_dev
No need for any worms. Just stack stuff on the soil.

There is nothing else to do, it works by itself.

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asdfman123
This headline sounds really dark given the coronavirus outbreak.

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hnarn
I think that interpretation says more about your own mental state.

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asdfman123
I'm not arguing with you there.

