Portland, OR has quite a gleaning movement happening. The People’s Co-op there even has an area outback that acts as a freecycle area.

Thanks for the reading suggestions. I’m always looking for another book.

Charity, the key to a happy compost pile is to try to balance wet with dry. Too much wet (food scraps, peels, etc) will lead to lots of mold; too dry and the compost won’t break down as well. Leaves + food scraps are our favorite combination; we fill with leaves in the fall and then add food scraps all winter and summer. (We have lots of leaves.) You can also add – of all things – laundry lint as a dry ingredient. Egg shells, too – just no animal products or oils. Some people turn their compost, saying it breaks down faster; we are lazy composters and just pile and let it do its own work. We grew our tomatoes this year in pure compost and wow, did they produce.

I am planning to begin composting in the spring — any suggestions?

Would your apartment building consider a small compost bin? (Homemade using found materials, of course.)

Just be sure to clearly label your worms DON’T THROW ME AWAY and put your name on it very conspicuously – I had a worm composter I was starting and my landlord thought it was just a bunch of old rotting newspapers and threw it into the garbage bin… and then threw broken glass on top of that. Poor worms.

One of my favorite moments is when she’s sifting and weighing her trash (again!) and her toddler interrupts the serious process with this plea, “Mommy, can you sing ‘Stewball’?”

This was not only a humorous moment, but also something that made me think… we are often like that child… we get tired of the work it takes to live responsibly and we long for a rousing chorus of something that’ll take us away.

That’s not necessarily always a bad thing… to take a break from the weight of it all… but it’s not a place to stay either.