Compost thieves beware!

markqz 8/11/2022, 7:21 pm

The State passed new laws this year requiring waste management companies to pick up household food waste, including things like grease-covered pizza boxes. The down-side is that we are no longer able to use any standard trash cans for green waste. The upside (?) is that we get a new trash can. We got our new canister this week. It's huge! Bigger than my first apartment, about. This warning message is emblazoned on the top:

Compost thieves beware! COqVRoL

Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials Sad

OhioGardener 8/11/2022, 8:10 pm

markqz wrote:Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials

**sanderson** 8/11/2022, 11:52 pm

Shoot. CA takes all the fun out of scrounging for compostable materials.

Soose 9/25/2022, 7:23 am

markqz wrote:Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials

@Markqz , there's something I'm not seeing here. Doesn't requiring every household to have a compost bin (and I assume they put it on the street for collection) just make it easier for you to take donations from others? Go along in front of the trucks collecting compost materials, and garner materials from the bins on your street, etc.? It's already sorted from the trash. Do tell, please.

**sanderson** 9/25/2022, 11:38 am

I think what Mark is describing is a change from separate cans for trash/food/used Huggies, etc. waste, green waste and recyclables. Each jurisdiction has their own way. Some have 2 cans, green waste and everything else. I think that is what Mark is describing. I have 3 cans: green, recyclables and trash/yuckies. That means nothing yucky goes in the green waste to prevent one from using the greens to compost.

Soose 9/25/2022, 11:44 am

Exactly, Sanderson. We're all on the same page there.
I was just puzzled by his comment:
"Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials"...
seems it would make collecting compost much easier - and you could even find
the organic households. Guess he was being funny.

markqz 9/25/2022, 3:08 pm

Soose wrote:
markqz wrote:Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials

@Markqz , there's something I'm not seeing here. Doesn't requiring every household to have a compost bin (and I assume they put it on the street for collection) just make it easier for you to take donations from others? Go along in front of the trucks collecting compost materials, and garner materials from the bins on your street, etc.? It's already sorted from the trash. Do tell, please.

Well, there is that sign, "No Scavenging. Violators will be persecuted."

Soose 9/25/2022, 3:27 pm

markqz wrote:Well, there go my plans to forage in the back alley for compost materials
Well, there is that sign, "No Scavenging. Violators will be persecuted."

Ah, see, I knew there was a reason I asked. I totally did not read that part of the sign. Dunno, I usually read signs thoroughly!

I can see they would not want people dumping out the bins onto the ground making a mess everywhere before the pickup truck comes. Guess you'll just have to make contacts and get permission to empty the quality bins before they're put into the city pathway.

What, btw, is the City going to DO with the compost? Make it available in composted form to citizens? That's the way the leaf collection program did here, for years and years and years. Free leaf mulch at the Botanical Gdn. Until 2008 came along and tight budgets meant a new mayor squashed it.

markqz 9/25/2022, 3:58 pm

Soose wrote:
What, btw, is the City going to DO with the compost? Make it available in composted form to citizens? That's the way the leaf collection program did here, for years and years and years. Free leaf mulch at the Botanical Gdn. Until 2008 came along and tight budgets meant a new mayor squashed it.

Locally, there is a commercial landscaping company right next to the waste management site (never, ever call it a "dump"). Apparently they get first dibs, or at least that's how it looks to me. I imagine they use some of the compost at one of the many city parks, though I really don't see much of it. Once or twice a year they hold a compost event where members of the public can drive in and fill up their own containers with compost. The question is whether you trust this compost in your own garden. The suggested uses are mainly for landscaping -- gardening is not mentioned.

Soose 9/25/2022, 10:08 pm

Well, maybe you can be picky and find organic neighbors who will let you at their bins. Post at stores or on NextDoor online, asking for good kitchen waste. Smile

It pays to be careful. I got a good load of manure from a lady who swears her horses did not get any Grazon. But the manure only grows grass, and when we tried to start a bean in it, it came up twisted and never grew beyond a few inches. I had not mixed it with anything, it's separate, but now I have to get rid of it. Somehow.

The leaf mulch program here became famous at the rose club because one year, a bunch of them got snails from the mulch.

OhioGardener 9/26/2022, 8:16 am

Soose wrote:It pays to be careful. I got a good load of manure from a lady who swears her horses did not get any Grazon. But the manure only grows grass, and when we tried to start a bean in it, it came up twisted and never grew beyond a few inches. I had not mixed it with anything, it's separate, but now I have to get rid of it. Somehow.

Unfortunately, if they bought grass hay for the horses they had no idea what was in it. It has become a real problem for gardeners these days.

A year or so ago I posted a note about doing a test for a neighbor on some composted cow manure they bought at a local gas station for $1.50 a bag. I tried to grow squash and beans in it, and they all yellowed and died. Those cows had apparently eaten Grazon. I told them the only thing the could do with that compost was spread it on their lawn - it would feed the grass and kill the weeds.

Soose 9/26/2022, 9:44 am

I'm afraid to even spread it in my grass or field anywhere, who is to say I won't need to grow something there with food shortages in future, you can't eat grass or if it's an edible, it will get into my own waste stream... I think I need to bag it and put it into the waste-to-steam facility trash pickup one bag at a time. That's heavily filtered as it burns.

markqz 9/26/2022, 11:52 pm

Soose wrote:I'm afraid to even spread it in my grass or field anywhere, who is to say I won't need to grow something there with food shortages in future, you can't eat grass or if it's an edible, it will get into my own waste stream... I think I need to bag it and put it into the waste-to-steam facility trash pickup one bag at a time. That's heavily filtered as it burns.

Corn is a grass. I wonder how it would do? Lemon grass is also edible. I now have way more than I can use.

Soose 10/10/2022, 7:22 am

markqz wrote:
Soose wrote:I'm afraid to even spread it in my grass or field anywhere, who is to say I won't need to grow something there with food shortages in future, you can't eat grass or if it's an edible, it will get into my own waste stream... I think I need to bag it and put it into the waste-to-steam facility trash pickup one bag at a time. That's heavily filtered as it burns.
Corn is a grass. I wonder how it would do? Lemon grass is also edible. I now have way more than I can use.

Well, there's an idea. I forget corn is a grass. I bet there are some plants that would help cleanse a soil that has been contaminated with something like Grazon, faster than it would recover itself. But I am just going to get rid of that manure. Not worth any chances.

**sanderson** 10/13/2022, 5:11 pm

I don't know how many hyperaccumulator crops and over how many years they would have to be grown to get Grazon and related products out of the soil. It may not even be possible using crops since they are not minerals. I don't know how many years it takes to naturally break down into harmless chemicals.

**sanderson** 10/13/2022, 5:25 pm

Housekeeping - Any further discussion of Grazon needs to go into this thread: https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t19731-grazon-poisioning#305720

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