An indoor solution for the balcony and allotment-less urban dweller.

The word parasite carries with it some nasty connotations, particularly for the independent young urbanite. There’s the bloodcurdling kind (rats scrambling into crevices pitted into the tracks of the F train, e.g.)and then there’s the human kind (roommate, from hell). Both are pretty nasty.

They feed off our trash while lusting for our blood. They’re capable of murder most foul. Parasites: they suck. Whoever would invite them to live amongst us, in our kitchens? Where we eat?

The answer is, clever Deutschlanders Charlotte Dieckmann and Nils Ferber. They’re behind the strikingly inoffensive Parasite Farm.

The Parasite Farm is an indoor vermicomposting system, replete with a chopping-board for quick scraps disposal. It can be attached to a kitchen table and the mountable plant boxes can be affixed to existing bookshelves.

Inside the Parasite Farm live the parasites that feed off your biological waste churning it into humus soil.

According to Fast Company via The New York Times, food waste accounts for roughly 13 percent of the trash in the United States. Composting in the open country or even the ‘burbs offers an easy solution to offset that level of waste. Composting in the city is “not for the faint of heart.”

“It requires commitment, space and sharing tight quarters with rotting matter and two-inch-long wiggler worms that look like pulsing vermicelli.”

Um, ick.

It also beckons fruit flies and, if not pulled off correctly, major olfactory funk. Luckily the Parasite Farm comes with this handy little flytrap to keep the fruit flies where they’re meant to be.

And the lively green device makes the task look friendly and approachable, thus totally doable for the composting impaired.

Here’s a visual of how it works:

Step 1.

Slide veggie trimmings into the bin, where the worms live.

Step 2.

Harvesting involves shaking the grate at the bottom and pulling it out of the drawer underneath

Step 3.

Leftover water is siphoned into a separate tank to be used as a liquid fertilizer.

Step 4.

Voila! Fertilize seeds with your apartment grown soil. Call yourself Farmer Jane.

Truly, this is as close to urban organic as you can get.

Images: Alexander Giesemann; Charlotte Dieckmann

ColumnWe don’t need our friends to teach us composting, we need them to have our back.

In a recent article for the Huffington Post, eco-activist Laurie David wrote earnestly (maybe a little too earnestly) about what she wants from her girlfriends. Her words were heartfelt and lofty (and maybe a tiny bit sanctimonious) as she wrote about needing female friends who “feed her soul” and how the basis of her adult friendships was teaching her friends and learning from them. One friendship, she wrote, was based on the fact that her girlfriend taught her how to make pad thai, while David introduced this woman to the “joys of composting.”

I admire Laurie David for her tireless work on behalf of the environment; moreover, she and I have a lot in common: we are both in our 50s, we both married men with curmudgeonly tendencies, and we are both desperately trying to get away with the same hairdo we had in high school.

But if Laurie David wants to be my buddy, she had better bring something to the table besides teaching me to compost. Because instructing me on how to keep a tub of rotting garbage next to my sink – a festering little pot of decay, complete with flies and worms and a vaguely vomit-y aroma – is not going to make her my BFF. My antipathy towards indoor composting is not the only reason I object to David’s blog post – her belief that friendships between women are founded on mutual teaching is just not something I can relate to.

Frankly, if I want to learn something I will take a course or read a book. (Who am I kidding? I’ll probably just Google it.) What I want from my friends has little to do with growth or empowerment, and it is not dependent on a sharing of skill sets.

From my friends I simply want love and support and unconditional acceptance. I want the knowledge that my girls have my back, and that they will, unquestionably, be on my side – whether I’m quarreling with my husband, the mob or the IRS. My friends don’t need me to teach them about Sudoku or fair labor practices – they just need me to show up with baked ziti when they’ve had a bad biopsy, or hand them tissues when they’re in the middle of a major life crisis. The friends who mean the most to me are the ones who cleaned my kitchen after my mother died, and drove me to the hospital when I had a bleeding child whimpering in my lap. They are the ones who have come – cheerfully and without much coercion – to my son’s soccer games and my daughter’s theater performances.

It’s not that I lack intellectual curiosity, well, not completely anyway, but to me, friends are not teachers or students – they are companions and playmates, fellow travelers and lifesavers. They are there to laugh with and commiserate with, for road trips and conversation, to hold my hand in an emergency and to come with me to museum exhibits that my husband wants no part of. A good friend does not have to teach me a blessed thing – she just has to come pick me up when my car dies on the interstate.

In the unlikely event that I ever decide to compost, I will learn whatever I need to know online. And then I will call a friend and hope to God she talks me out of it.

Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: El Groo

When was the last time you attended an event where food and drink was sold in disposable vessels?

If you’re an EcoSalon reader, it’s likely that after consuming your food or beverage you examined the container carefully to see if it was made from corn (or another plant product). And if it was, you probably then looked around for a compost bin to throw it in. Did you find one?

I’m guessing you didn’t and, left without much choice, you threw it in the garbage, maybe feeling a little uneasy, but consoling yourself with the thought that at least the container wasn’t made from petroleum, and it would break down. Right?

Wrong.

There are two problematic factors in potato, corn, and other plant-based plastics, which are often called “bioplastics.”

The first is disposal. Because many municipalities (even large cities like New York) don’t offer curbside composting, there’s an intention gap. Even the ones that do offer such a feature may offer residential, and not commercial composting, which means you’d have to bring your cup home with you to compost it. Realistically, how many people are going to do that?

Then there’s the labeling. Some compostable packaging and containers are not clearly labeled and can be indistinguishable from petroleum-based containers. Only highly motivated consumers will go that extra mile to find out, especially if there’s only one bin in which to toss your waste.

Some compostable ware may actually be worse for the environment than petroleum-based ware. Or at best, it might just be feel-good gesture or a marketing opportunity for companies or restaurants using it.

Still, plant-based plastic is a net win, right?

Probably not.

Consider net energy use. Lifecycle studies show that, as far as energy or water use goes, the production of petroleum-based plastics may actually be less taxing on the environment than the production of some plant-based plastics. This is partially because agriculture is fossil fuel and water intensive, and most plant-based plastics are produced using agricultural processes, including resource-intensive, soil-depleting mono-culturing.

There’s the issue of breakdown and associated greenhouse gases, too. Theoretically, bio plastics will break down faster than petroleum based plastics, but in a landfill, almost nothing breaks down due to lack of oxygen. And if the bio plastics do break down, that’s not necessarily a good thing since they can emit methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times stronger than C02.

Is anyone getting it right?

I spoke to Helene York, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Bon Appétit Management Company,  a food service company that strives to lessen its impact on the environment through its business practices.

Among other initiatives, the company instituted the Low Carbon Diet. In addition to reducing meat and cheese consumption, reducing the use of airfreight, and other company wide actions, the Low Carbon Diet addresses the problem of waste – both food and non-food waste.

I asked York if plant-based plastics or petroleum were the better choice.

“What’s the environmental problem we’re trying to solve?” she asked.

Then she went on to outline the complicating considerations that make this question of “plant based?” or “petroleum based?” such a dilemma.

According to York, “If the problem is climate change, ocean acidification (which is related to climate change), total energy use, soil erosion, water use, or the decline of water tables in the Midwest, then most plant-based resins aren’t a better choice than most plastics.” Because they rely on agriculture.

“If the problem is keeping plastics out of the landfill, this isn’t an environmental problem. It’s a municipal finance problem. Plastics in a modern landfill are inert and they don’t leach. They don’t do anything in fact, while plant-based products have the potential to breakdown and generate methane.”

And then York gets to the heart of the question for The Green Plate:

“Do we really want to use land for growing commodity crops intended for industrial uses, whether they are for animal feed or to satisfy our convenience needs? Just because something is made with a natural or renewable ingredient,” she says, “doesn’t mean it’s a better product than something made from a durable ‘recyclable’ product like PET.”

In the end, the smartest thing is to reduce the number of disposables used entirely, which is what Bon Appétit is striving for in its daily operations.

You can do it, too. When you’re heading out of the house, why not grab a drinking vessel, or a mason jar (if you’re a hipster), and even a lightweight container? You could even invest in some bamboo flatware.

After all, you never know when you’re going to want to sample some delicious street food or drink. You may even consider only buying from vendors who use low impact packaging like recycled paper that is fully compostable anywhere.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: denkrahm

Composting when you have a big backyard? Easy. Composting when you’re a city dweller? Downright disgusting, right? It doesn’t have to be. You can turn little bits of kitchen waste – think coffee grinds and citrus rinds rather than super-stinky garbage – into fertile compost right on your kitchen counter. These cute Ceramic Countertop Compost Containers from Uncommon Goods will blend into your kitchen as if they were a jar for dog treats or flour.

The gorgeously simple containers are handmade in Vermont by artist Beth Mueller. Before tossing in your kitchen scraps, you’ll line the compost crock with a BioBag – each crock comes with 25 to get you started. The BioBags help eliminate odors and also make it easy to clean out your compost every few days, or every week, depending on how much you toss inside. We love these artful composters – labeled either “grow” or “simplify” for kitchen composting newbies – because they’re an easy solution compared to some more complicated indoor composting get-ups.

To be or not to be – compost worthy? That is the question Hamlet might pose if the play were written in 2010 and his so-called “sea of troubles”  meant environmental destruction such as the Gulf spill, coral devastation or floating plastic islands. In a time of waste not, we need to question when it is okay to throw away food to produce fertilizer or other sustainable uses.

Since the old directive to clean our plates no longer applies (not in a nation fighting an epidemic of obesity) we end up with a lot of extra food on our plates and tables. Sometimes the portions we serve kids and guests are too abundant. We are left to decide whether or not to wrap up leftovers, feed them to hungry pets or grab the kitchen bin to make mulch.

Don’t let it go to the dogs!

Most experts would agree table leftovers are rarely good for our dogs, despite the fact it feels good to share. “Smoky loves turkey,” my daughters coo, often tossing our pug a handful of meat or a bone. According to Pet Education, a morsel off your plate here and there probably won’t hurt, but most people don’t stop there with those perpetual, adorable moochers. And even healthy organic cuisine recommended for us might not go down so well with God’s other creatures. What about your other pets? Find more info here.

“Feed me more tofu and lentils!”

“The rich foods we eat can wreak havoc on your dog’s digestive tract,” warns Animal Planet. “A simple, consistent diet keeps their system functioning as it should. Throw in your very different foods and spices and do not be surprised if your dog has bad gas, bad breath, loose stools, etc.” Hey, none of those side effects are any fun when your little guy sleeps on your bed. That pertains to big guys, too!

Was the food untouched?

Sometimes the scraps we save for ourselves can be bad for the system, too, depending on who dined on them, how long they sat out, and if the cat licked them with her scratchy tongue while standing on the table with her cat litter-covered contaminated feet. My cat learned to mooch from my pug and she is relentless.

I have a few rules about the scraps. For one thing, I never save anything a baby has sucked on because of the gross factor. Sure, I licked my own babies’ toes, but that is different from their soggy, 1/4 eaten Noah’s bagel.

In terms of wrapping it to go in my fridge or pantry, I consider it if it was just my family that at the meal. If that ‘s the case,  I’m obviously more inclined to fridge that other untouched half of a perfectly good turkey sandwich, bowl of pasta or veggie fried rice. I know when my children are healthy, and when they are teeming with germs, they don’t usually eat at the family table. I try to clear the table dishes before animals can get to the food (yes, even when the finale of The Office is starting) and use my best judgment to decide if the saved food will really get eaten. If it won’t, it makes more sense to recycle it as compost, and very rarely does it simply go down the drain.

Guest who’s not eating their dinner?

When guests dine at our table, it is a different story. Call it squeamishness, but I’m more hesitant to save plated food because of fear of germs. Blood is thicker than water and the leftovers of those with different blood can be repugnant. Still, it’s painful to toss a hardly touched plate, and on occasion, I save food off kids’ plates because they simply didn’t eat much and their hands were clean when they sat down. A second helping of macaroni ignored; a bowl of fruit shunned; an ample helping of broccoli that never entered the mouth of steel. I see no problem with keeping those items for dinner or breakfast, or doing what chefs do, and recycling them for a soup or other new dish.

Hunger versus health.

I guess it comes down to what you can stomach and afford. I’ve heard that hungry waiters and other staff working in snazzy Berkeley restaurants often scarf up the five-star fillets and fudge cake barely eaten by a customer. They’re not letting those dishes artfully composed by a celebrity chef go down the drain.

Then again, every day, businesses trash completely untouched food because of health codes. I’ve watched a Noah’s Bagels in my San Francisco hood at closing time unload boxes of bagels into a dumpster on the street.

The final extreme is my ungreen mother, who insists upon throwing out anything left on the table, and even cleaning untouched plates and utensils because they were exposed to the air and potential germs. We all make up our own rules. Ideally, the ones we enforce will result in healthy bodies and a healthy planet.

Images: Jbloom, Pet Education, 1000 Heads

In a tight urban space, committing to compost isn’t the easiest of feats. But in Washington, D.C. residents will soon be able to reap the benefits of composting without dealing with its difficulties.

Launching this spring, Compost Cab will provide customers with a bin which can then be filled with all kinds of compostables. Once a week, Compost Cab will pick up the organic material and compost it for you. For every 50 pounds of organic waste that Compost Cab collects from a customer, the customer is entitled to five pounds of fresh compost and one pound of worm castings in exchange. That’s a screaming deal for you and your plants.

For those who don’t have yard or garden space but still want to take part in the composting effort, Compost Cab will donate the customer’s share of compost to Engaged Community Offshoot, an urban farm that aims to provide people from all walks of life with sustainable, fresh produce.

But D.C. isn’t the only area with composting services. In Northampton, MA, residents can take advantage of composting services offered by Pedal People, with your organic waste being collected by bike. Same goes for the people of Philadelphia, who can call on Pedal Co-op to pick up their kitchen waste.

Are you an urbanite with a creative way of composting? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Image: SaltyGrease

Even if you’re well aware of the benefits of composting your kitchen scraps, keeping smelly food waste and creepy-crawly grubs close by in your backyard might not sound so appealing. I admit, a compost bin isn’t at the top of my list to earn a spot on my city terrace. But some compost piles are easier to manage than others, and when I read about the BioPod Plus, it sounded doable.

While you can create a DIY compost bin out of a coffee can or bigger garbage can, first time composters will probably feel more comfortable with a gadget that will make the task easier. The BioPod Plus is bio-conversion system made for residential situations and small enough for city dwellers to handle. The design of the bin not only helps your scraps keep from stinking up a storm, it also helps kitchen scraps break down fast – in as little as 24 hours. In a few weeks, you’ll have compost that’s ready to be used in the garden or in potted plants. With an average compost pile, you’ll have to wait 6 to 12 months!

Yes, there are grubs involved, but the folks at BioPod assure us they’re the nice kind and even kids can gather the scent-free worms. They might even attract songbirds like cardinals, bluebirds or chickadees. And again, the design of the bin makes it easier because unlike many compost piles in which you need to separate the grubs by hand (yuck!), the BioPod’s design encourages the buggers to migrate out naturally.

In the end, you’ll save energy by skipping the garbage disposal and you’re keeping your food waste out of landfills, too.

Image: lindsay.dee.bunny

Did you know that compost piles are great for turning coffee grounds, eggshells and potato peelings into nutrient-rich soil for your plants? Okay, that’s the upside. The downside is it’s a heap of grossness that isn’t pretty to look at and doesn’t smell as good as the daises it helps to grow. Don’t give up on your compost just yet – build a pretty bin to hide the ick in just six steps.

Better Homes and Gardens has the goods on how to build a backyard compost bin that looks snazzy and comes together quickly. All you need is four two-by-four wood planks, two lengths of lattice panels, a couple of clothesline hooks and a few hand tools. Essentially all you need to do is jam the posts into the ground, use the lattice paneling as walls to form the enclosure, then add a gate so you can get to the compost easily. Check the website for exact measurements and step-by-step instructions to have your very own compost bin up and running in an afternoon.

To be honest, as much as we love how quickly this bad boy can be put together, the lattice paneling didn’t really grab us. There are plenty of other options to try, though. We think bamboo or responsibly harvested wood solid paneling would look great. Have you built your own compost bin? We’d love to hear your best tips in the comments.

Image by normanack

Did you know that your dog or cat’s fur is a renewable resource? No matter how often you groom your furry friend, their pesky hairs appear all over your furniture, in your car and on that nice black blazer you just had cleaned. Instead of wearing out your vacuum trying to fight your fur problem, here are three ingenious ways to harness the shedding power of your dog or cat.

Crafty Clothing and Accessories

In the market for a colorful clutch? Catty Shack Creations in Simpsonville, South Carolina, found a clever way to keep the mounds of fur from their grooming salon away from landfills. Founder Danelle German collects cat and dog fur and whips them up into purses.

Feeling crafty? Collect your pet’s fur and send it off to a company like VIP FIBERS INC. to be woven into yarn, which you can then knit into clothing. Pick up a copy of Knitting with Dog Hair to learn how to make your own sweater from Fluffy’s fur.

Soak up Spills

Consider donating your pet’s fur to be incorporated into a simple technology utilized to clean up oil spills. Matter of Trust is a nonprofit organization that utilizes both human hair and pet fur to sop up oil spills. The Hair for Oil Spills program collaborates with groomers to collect fur, but individuals can donate their pet’s fur, too. Check out the Matter of Trust site for donation details.

Grow Green with Composted Pet Fur

The general rule for composting is if it rots, it’s good to go, which makes pet fur a great addition to your compost heap. To prevent it from clumping, be sure to use small amounts at a time, and thoroughly mix the fur with your existing compost. Keep in mind that it will break down slower than food and yard scraps. Some gardeners also think that incorporating pet fur into your garden adds the scent of your pet, which deters wild critters. Another simple option? Collect small clumps of your pet’s fur and leave it in a basket on your porch or in piles near the base of trees. Birds will collect the discarded fur to build their nests.

Images: Ed Yourdon, The Moonstone Archive, tomnono, andy carter

My mother, the nice Jewish lady seen here at her box at the Hollywood Bowl,  is among the biggest paper and water consumers in the country. It hasn’t been easy getting her to turn over a new leaf. (Or rather, fewer of them.)

She has a varied and colorful history of helping herself to fistfuls of disposable napkins at restaurants, collecting hundreds of brown paper grocery bags from Gelson’s Market and requiring daily soaks or showers. She’s pretty darn clean, my mother.

“I never, ever get dressed before bathing,” she has always told me.

“What? So you’ve never heard of French cologne?”

Last summer, I played the dutiful daughter and learned Italian to help mom out on our trip to Italy in September. Turns out, the only phrase that came in handy from Rome to Como was piu l’asciugamani, por favore: More towels, please. Uttered even more frequently to the nice Italian chambermaids was piu faccia l’asciugamani: More face towels!

If there’s someone out there who uses more wash cloths than my 80-year-old mother, I’d like to meet her. No exaggeration, there were several 3-foot high stacks of  Italian terrycloth squares atop the marble vanity of each hotel we visited. How does one person use so many towels without wiping off their face?

The thing is, she would never use a towel more than once. Some people go through towels but they hang them to dry and use them again. Mom won’t even wear one of her 200 Façonnable print blouses more than once without dry cleaning it. Who knew daily treks to Gelson’s Market could work up such a sweat?

And as far as paper napkins and facial tissues are concerned, I think she associates having ample supplies on hand with being well-cared for.

Yep, that’s how Cherie rolls. I love her dearly and wouldn’t trade her in for anyone (except of course, Joan Rivers, and who wouldn’t?). But I have been frustrated trying to convert her to the ways of the unwashed revolutionaries fighting to conserve resources.

Funny, mom is a dichotomy in some ways; she stays out of the sun, shuns drugs (even aspirin) and sips herb tea instead of coffee. But she can’t seem to get on board that eco bus, apart from abiding by L.A. drought restrictions on water use.

Before he died two years ago, my dad, a real estate developer, considered himself to be an early conservationist.

The logo on his office stationary read, “The environment is our business.” He was  frugal and a stickler about turning off lights, shutting off air, cutting down on sprinkler and telephone use, buying used cars for his kids and only building as much housing as he felt the market required. He was one of the first advocates of a mass transit system in L.A. He swore by solar power and used it to warm his pool starting in the 70s.

After dad’s years of chronic scolding, mom did learn to turn off lights and only cranks the heat when she is “freezing to death.”

Yet visits to her McMansion in the Valley become guilt-ridden ones for me and my conscientious kids as we stand idly by watching Nana toss paper and plastic into the garbage. Her gated community even offers recycling and composting bins to be picked up by the waste removal company. The kids and I have explained the benefits of composting to her many times, to which she has replied:

“Why would you throw extra food into a container when you have a garbage disposal?”

In truth, I can’t see her stomaching such a crude process as composting. After all, her breakfast room place settings go into the dishwasher even if no one has touched the utensils. “They’ve been out and so they are dirty,” she informs me. She glares at me with one of those disapproving scowls as if to say that I’m the one who’s crazy.

I forgive her these limitations. Mom is what you call a neat freak. My therapist has urged me not to elaborate.

The good news is that I am making a few inroads with the recycling lectures.

“Now, listen carefully, Mom, when you use a glass jar, let’s say of spaghetti sauce, and you toss it into the trash, it goes into a landfill. Landfills are really full and bad for the planet. If you recycle it, someone can reuse the glass to make something consumers can use.”

For years, she has refused to buy these arguments from me, her youngest. But the other day, when I questioned her about trash disposal again on the phone, she checked in with my older sister who was sitting nearby.

“Do you recycle your trash?” she asked Deb, while I waited patiently for the survey results. “Yes, of course I do,” said my sister. She’s the oldest.

“Oh,” said mom, now seemingly convinced. “I’ll have to tell Mariano (her helper) to start separating the stuff.”

And to think, all it took was a family intervention.

Main image: Visual Panic

Other images: Luanne Bradley