BajaNomad

environmentally sound food waste disposal

bajateresa - 10-17-2010 at 05:09 PM

Hi all,

Here at Posada Concepcion, a camp of about 60 homes south of Mulege, a group of us is hoping to introduce basic recycling and raw-vegetable waste composting this year. As for other things we eat, many of us who fish either put out the fish-cleaning residue parts, shrimp shells, etc on a deserted part of our beach for the seagulls to eat OR take that waste out to sea and dump it overboard.

Some are now wondering if the inedible parts of cooked chicken or meat can be disposed of in the same way. Wd this food waste decompose in the sea or be beneficial in any way to the organisms and creatures that live there? Obviously we do not want to use Bahia Concepcion as a dump; we are looking only for ways to divert food waste, which constitutes about 25% of all trash, from the open-air garbage mound across the highway.

We welcome advice from all you marine biologists and composters out there and will not do anything until and unless we hear sound arguments in favor of this approach. All suggestions for alternative methods of disposing of raw and cooked food waste is welcome. (Note: So far we haven't found any pig farmers in our area who want our scraps.) Thank you!

Diver - 10-17-2010 at 05:30 PM

Most of our food scraps go to our chickens.
Fence the area and build a layer and your scraps will turn to eggs ! :yes:

mtgoat666 - 10-17-2010 at 07:18 PM

don't throw your waste in the bay, it just floats back up on somebodies beach.
compost your green waste.
recycle what you can.
quit the burning/open pit disposal of trash. step into 21st century and learn how to bury your wastes. modern sanitary fill should have daily covering of waste so vectors are not eating it, wind is not distributing it.

toneart - 10-17-2010 at 07:42 PM

Chicken wastes and other animal and fish parts are consumed by vultures, seagull and even dogs. They are also biodegradable. It's all organic! That is only a dirty concept to wingnuts and we all know the intelligence or lack thereof, therein.:coolup:

vgabndo - 10-17-2010 at 09:03 PM

Compost is beautiful! You can put almost anything but meat into it. In the working side of my two bins each shovel full must have 30-50 big healthy worms. I layer-in some cow manure and occasional chicken manure to keep it working. If it cools down I sometimes hype it up with enough manure tea to soak it good.

By the last frost next year I'll have another 500 pounds of rich organic fertilizer. Free.

I had more, bigger, and earlier tomatoes than anyone on the block this year. ZERO chemicals. When I can the Early Girls, I get about 8 pints of sauce from 15 lbs. I've already canned three times and there have to be 30 pounds on the vines right now. The cherry tomatoes we cut in half and dehydrate. Thats a 12' x 15' patch. COMPOST!

We recycle "religiously". Each week we have one 13 gallon bag of waste for the landfill, and each month we have one 30 gallon bag of tin, aluminum, and plastic for pick-up by the sheltered workshop crew.

I wish I had a source of seaweed! You guys are lucky.

Good luck with your worthy project.

Mexico map 012 (Small).jpg - 46kB

toneart - 10-17-2010 at 09:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by vgabndo
Compost is beautiful! You can put almost anything but meat into it. In the working side of my two bins each shovel full must have 30-50 big healthy worms. I layer-in some cow manure and occasional chicken manure to keep it working. If it cools down I sometimes hype it up with enough manure tea to soak it good.

By the last frost next year I'll have another 500 pounds of rich organic fertilizer. Free.

I had more, bigger, and earlier tomatoes than anyone on the block this year. ZERO chemicals. When I can the Early Girls, I get about 8 pints of sauce from 15 lbs. I've already canned three times and there have to be 30 pounds on the vines right now. The cherry tomatoes we cut in half and dehydrate. Thats a 12' x 15' patch. COMPOST!

We recycle "religiously". Each week we have one 13 gallon bag of waste for the landfill, and each month we have one 30 gallon bag of tin, aluminum, and plastic for pick-up by the sheltered workshop crew.

I wish I had a source of seaweed! You guys are lucky.

Good luck with your worthy project.


That's good, Vgabndo! I tried to have a compost up here in No. California, in the mountains. It attracted bears and raccoons and bad neighbors' dogs. Even a fence around it wouldn't keep the bears from it.

vgabndo - 10-17-2010 at 10:06 PM

This guy was through the back yard so many times this summer that you can clearly see the path! He walked through the fence so many times I just left the boards on the ground. He never bothered the compost, and preferred the blackberries over the raspberries which was fine with me. The neighborhood named him Henry! The racoons stir stuff up a little, but their big irritation is their dining at the Koi pond!

My attack cat, Tillie, keeps the dogs on the run...really.:lol:

Gardening and grand daughters...life is sweet.

[Edited on 10-18-2010 by vgabndo]

Bearcam 003 crop (Small).jpg - 38kB

capt. mike - 10-18-2010 at 04:54 AM

"covering of waste so vectors are not eating it"

WTF is a vector? it eats trash?

Cypress - 10-18-2010 at 06:48 AM

'Vectors" is the last name of their next door neighbors.:light:

vgabndo - 10-18-2010 at 03:52 PM

Vector

In pathology. An organism, such as a mosquito or tick, that carries disease-causing microorganisms from one host to another.

There you go flyboy. Probably used incorrectly as originally posted.:lol:

DENNIS - 10-18-2010 at 03:57 PM

WOW....A pilot asking, "What is a vector." :wow:

Martyman - 10-18-2010 at 04:01 PM

I think cooked chicken or meat can be thrown overboard. Fishermen use it for bait in crab traps. As long as it is small amounts. Dump it at different places-shouldn't be a problem.

bajabass - 10-18-2010 at 04:02 PM

Possibly vermin?:yes: Vector Control is for skeeters and such pests. Rats, possums, racoons, mice are vermin.

BajaDanD - 10-18-2010 at 05:06 PM

Whats your Vector Victor

environmentally sound food waste disposal

bajateresa - 10-19-2010 at 06:57 AM

thanks for the responses -- they've helped to inititate more discussions internally on the topic.

re our dump, we are constrained by the fact that the Mexican family who owns our camp is in charge of garbage disposal. some of us are now talking about offering to pay an add'l premium to encourage burying the waste. our primary plan is to reduce what is going over to the dump via recycling and composting.

also, while the idea of chickens is appealing, it wd be difficult to maintain a coop when the residents of our camp come and go a great deal, and few people are here during the summer. it wd also be challenging to identify a space within our camp that no one wd object to for various reasons.

thanks again for the ideas and comments. pls keep 'em coming as you think of them!

Cypress - 10-19-2010 at 07:14 AM

Someone in the area that raises hogs would probably take it all off your hands to feed their hogs.

ecomujeres - 10-20-2010 at 05:12 PM

OK, I have way more than my 2 pesos worth to add. It comes in two parts too!

1. Look into buying or creating a composting bin(s) that can be made from a 50 gallon drum with lid, turned on its side, mounted on a stand and with a mechanism to rotate it. Look on the internet for ideas. The drum can be plastic or metal and has aeration holes cut into it covered with coarse mesh. Regular turning of the compost is easy on all the backs (young or old) involved.

The advantages of this type of system in the desert environment includes:

* It keeps it up and away from rodents, those vectors everyone has been joking about.

* It keeps it out of the salt pan that is what makes up most of the yards at Posada C. Salt inhibits organisms that aid in decomp. When we composted at Playa Punta Arena for more than 10 years, we did it back away from the salt flats on sandy, well-drained soil. Unfortunately, we didn't have the spinning drum, though we would have loved to have had one.

* It can easily be watered and turned.

You might also want to look into some other designs, especially medium-sized ones if a large number of people want to be involved, though you can start with small "units" and add as you go and succeed.

Talk to people at NOLS at Coyote Beach. They have a commercial composting toilet, but I believe they also deal with a large amount of food waste.

2. Use graywater from the kitchen or other sources for watering the pile. Watering is an important component of successful decomp in a dry, desert environment. Gray water also adds bacteria and organisms that can help with decomp. You can also add some sargassum sea weed to the mix. Diluted urine too. Lots of books and online resources on these topics.

3. We always found it challenging to find sources of dried organic matter, like leaves, to add to our mix. Use garden debris, such as palm coire, bougainvillea and other ornamental leaves (avoid any with milky, toxic saps like oleander or euphorbias). Collect it from your neighbors. Straw is good but avoid sawdust, as this can take years to fully decompose.

4. Manure is available in the valley from a number of ranchers, such as the dairy. We never were able to find manure worms in the horse manure though. Always too dry by the time we got to it. But they must be around somewhere! A few worms certainly do aid in composting and will multiply in temperate weather. You can also collect damp or dried cowpats from the desert (break up and soak if needed before adding).

There is not as wide a variety of insect decomposers in the desert, where termites and ants are the principal workers. If you can stand ants, let them be in the pile. A properly moist and moved pile though, is less attractive to ants taking up residence and laying eggs there, which is when they can become problematic. We saw mostly sow bugs, which are consumers of dead and decaying vegetable matter, and ants in our piles. Never saw scorpions, centipedes, rodents or snakes, but…

5. Meat, bones and cheese CAN be composted, but it takes more time and has to be done in small amounts. Citrus is also not good as it tends to start to ferment and get unpleasantly smelly really fast. We dried peels in the sun and burned them in the campfire.

If the pile smells bad, then it’s too much of something wet/meaty etc and not enough material to absorb and keep the pile aerated. That goes for anything added in excess, where anaerobic conditions can set in. Add more dry organic material and wait to add more of the meat/bones/cheese/offending items.

Composting these items is usually discouraged in cities because it can attract rodents (mice, rats, racoons). However, the above type of compost bin, or one completely made of about ¼” sized hardware cloth (sides AND bottom) will keep out desert rodents. Needs a good lid/cover to keep it from drying out and animals getting into it. Again, just don’t have it right on the salt pan, or the bottom will be rusted out shortly and no beneficial insects will want to be there.

6. Turkey vultures prefer freshly dead animals and will likely ignore bones and such once they’ve dried out a bit or get too ripe. How many people have seen piles of dead fish or animal parts out in the dumps that just smell bad and are untouched? Bones that have been well-cooked, like when making broth, that get softened, are much easier on the compost pile.

OK. More to add on the recycling issue next post.

ecomujeres - 10-20-2010 at 05:18 PM

(P)recycling


Precycling should be at the heart of any good recycling and composting plan. It is, unfortunately one that most people don’t really want to think about since we want all of our cherished amenities right here while we are in Baja.

Precycling entails thought. Thought about what you buy and about what the product comes packaged in. And if the packaging is recyclable, biodegradable or reuseable. And thought about whether you really need it if it is not environmentally friendly.

Think about all the packing that comes with the stuff we buy at places like Costco, where everything is individually packaged, then packed again into a larger “lot”. All the plastic drink bottles. The plastic vegetable bags that we get new with each visit to the grocer, use once and throw away. All the plastic wrapped food items, cans…

Think about if you want to leave all that junk in Baja, to blow out to sea, to end up killing sea turtles, to ensnare marine animals or birds, to get caught up in cacti and to basically create the unsightly situations that many of us complain about.

Think about where you live in the North and whether you have curbside recycling or any type of recycling. The chances of recycling programs becoming available in the next 5-10 years to deal with most of the stuff we can recycle in the North, is unlikely. There just isn’t a market for it, at least not in the central Baja area.

Then think about packing a lot of that recyclable garbage home with you.

Like campers in wilderness areas, we have done this for years in Baja. We are two people, thoughtful about what we buy, use and reuse. After 6 months in Mulege, each spring we take home our recyclables, crushed and packed into the space of about 1.5 orange boxes. We also take home non-recylable items that we don’t want to see left out in the desert but that can go out with our trash in the North.

My suggestion for a recycling program would be:

* Think a lot about what you do every day, what you use and how you want to impact positively or negatively the environment. Be creative.

* Precycle, reducing the amount of waste to be generated in the first place. This includes never buying foam or plastic plates and cups. Stick with paper, which is burnable/biodegradable. Beer and soda in returnable bottles.

* Reuse any plastic bags as many times as you can. Stop getting new ones as much as possible.

* Reuse any other items as possible: glass jars, bottles, cans.

* Avoid any foam plates or containers for take out food. Take your own containers. We have our carnitas box and our pozole/birria jars at hand most of the time.

* Invest in some cloth shopping bags. You can teach other people by example. If you do end up with plastic shopping bags, it should only be to use as garbage bags for the little leftover amount that has to go to the basurero for burning/burial. No need to buy garbage bags.

* Burn paper products like TP, boxes, etc in your firepit/place (the impact of air pollution is minimal in comparison to the impact of the waste on the desert ecosystems). You could also do this with bones and meat.

* Precycle, avoiding excess or non-reusable or biodegradable packaging. Glass, aluminum & metal are OK, plastic is not so good, unless has long-term reuse capability. Foam bad, bad, bad.

* All kitchen scraps should go to composting. Paper products, those without heavy inking or shiny coated papers can also be used, once shredded, for dry, organic material in the compost.

* Encourage local recycling of the items that are accepted, like aluminum cans, car/rv batteries or a variety of metals, by recycling locally.

* Throw out in the garbage only those few items that you can’t deal with otherwise. We prefer disposal at the town dump (Las Plumas) as there is less likelihood that the items will blow right out to sea with the next north wind.

* Take the rest home.

Suerte with your plans. Feel free to contact me via U2U in the future.

avid - 10-20-2010 at 08:35 PM

I have been using the Naturemill for almost a year. For a long time I had gotten away with burying all vegetable matter in the garden. The raccoons, opossums and bears were done being denied. The NatureMill claims to take any kind of kitchen scraps. We really haven't tested it's ability on meat or fish scraps. Everything else gets turned into great compost, pronto! It's expensive and I was dubious at first but am no longer. They claim it could be used in the kitchen but mine lives in the garage. In a way, the thing is really scary how fasts it makes kitchen waste disappear.

dtbushpilot - 10-20-2010 at 09:18 PM

Wow ecomu, you must have a lot of time on your hands........great suggestions though....dt

Bajatripper - 10-21-2010 at 01:50 PM

Ecomujeres
with that much posting, no wonder you're behind on your other projects!

Thanks for the tips. But keep it up, and we'll think of you in the same way we think of David K and his fondness for maps.:lol:

[Edited on 10-21-2010 by Bajatripper]

ecomujeres - 10-21-2010 at 06:09 PM

Bajatripper:

Oh, oh, I've been caught!

But I'd just finished up the meloncoyote pages and needed a break, and composting/recycling is one of our big interests. And I had to get it all said before we go off the grid for the weekend.

durrelllrobert - 10-23-2010 at 10:31 AM

a community compost pile is great, but if it gets too big there is a real danger of spontanious combustion. happened to me twice with a pile that measured 4 ft x 16 ft x about 3 ft deep.:!::!::!:

DENNIS - 10-23-2010 at 11:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by durrelllrobert
a community compost pile is great, but if it gets too big there is a real danger of spontanious combustion. happened to me twice with a pile that measured 4 ft x 16 ft x about 3 ft deep.:!::!::!:



Great idea to put one right next to that over-insured house that won't sell. :fire:

environmentally sound food waste disposal

bajateresa - 10-24-2010 at 08:10 AM

Ecomujeres,

Muchisima gracias for the lengthy and informative posting!

i didn't go into a lot of detail in my original posting about the (p)recycling efforts under way here at Posada, but we are putting barrels in a central location here for recyclables like aluminum cans, mixed metals, and #1 plastic, and our groundskeepers will taken them regularly to Juan, the guy on Mex 1 who will give our guys a few pesos for them. our community recycling team is dedicated to encouraging folks here to use cloth grocery bags and reuse plastic veggie bags, reduce packaging waste, etc. We sent out a community-wide email this summer suggesting people bring boxed wine instead of the usual cases and cases of bottled wine, whose glass ends up in the dump....

yesterday we learned that the owner of Posada is buying 2 piglets that will be housed across the road -- her contribution to disposal of cooked waste, including meat, chicken, and fish. this week we installed a Green Cone, a composting device that the City of Seattle distributed to all households in the '90s (before they instituted curbside food waste pickup). you can Google "green cone composting" for a look at it. the cone has a basket under it that is buried in the ground -- here, we put it as far from the beach as poss but still within the Posada boundary, so people wd be willing to actually walk their raw veggie waste to it. a lid on top locks securely, so it is a "closed" system. The cone is an experiment and, with the advent of the pigs, can be limited to raw veggie waste disposal. we have a supply of "brown" waste to balance the green, and we'll keep an eye on its moistness.

this discussion has been educational and so very helpful. thank you again!

Let me make this simple

mcfez - 10-25-2010 at 07:24 PM

Two things here.

Take all the fish waste, place into 30 gal container with partial water. keep adding water and fish waste. This becomes "fish emulsion" .....organic fertilizer. the plants will Schwarzenegger on you!


All the other stuff....make a plot map of future sites for gardens, trees, shrubs. As you go....dig out these future planting areas....throw everything including Mother in Laws into the hole. Cover with sand/soil once filled. Install your plants there six months later.

mulegemichael - 10-26-2010 at 06:11 AM

we have a large, heavy duty blender that we make instant compost with....save up all our kitchen scraps during the week, put them in the blender with a little water and whirr them into a slurry...beachgirl just dumps this directly onto the ground and bingo!..instant compost...no problem with stinky smelly rotting veggies, no problem with animals or insects...just scratch it into the ground and it's gone..time to plant!

DENNIS - 10-26-2010 at 06:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mcfez
Take all the fish waste, place into 30 gal container with partial water. keep adding water and fish waste. This becomes "fish emulsion" .....organic fertilizer. the plants will Schwarzenegger on you!




That could also be used in the bait-can in a lobster trap.

Pompano - 10-26-2010 at 07:07 AM

Compost? I wish..but my folks taught me to eat everything on my plate. :rolleyes:

wessongroup - 10-26-2010 at 07:11 AM

Damn, Dennis... you did fish for lobsters... and for some reason I thought you were just "office type"..

Have watched the guys out in front going out every day and pull "traps/pots" .. taking one heck of a lot off "kelp" of the "pot ropes"...

It looks to be one hard task to do .. the weight of the "pots" with the kelp appear pretty heavy to get up off the bottom and get through the kelp.. had never watched someone fish for lobster.. dive for them yes, but, not really work the pots...

Usually two guys in one boat, but sometimes one.. also have seen them get "stuck" in the kelp for hours and hours... once the others had to go back out to get one guy.. he just could not get out of the "kelp"... tried for an entire afternoon.. and was still there around sundown.. that's went the others came out to give a hand..

Fishing for a living, one tough dangerous job... lost a good friend that was a "crab" fisherman.. he got his leg in the rope when tossing the traps .. and that was it... RIP

[Edited on 10-26-2010 by wessongroup]

[Edited on 10-26-2010 by wessongroup]

DENNIS - 10-26-2010 at 07:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by wessongroup
Damn, Dennis... you did fish for lobsters... and for some reason I thought you were just "office type"..



I was "office type" Wiley. After work. There was a popular bar in Costa Mesa called THE OFFICE and we would go there almost daily.
Jeeeezo...that was like a billion years ago.

wessongroup - 10-26-2010 at 07:46 AM

Well, isn't this a small world, have been to the same place on occasion... had some folks that I would work with, just across the street when BofA had some space there... but is been a very long time ago.. also...

[Edited on 10-26-2010 by wessongroup]

ecomujeres - 11-11-2010 at 09:02 PM

Bajateresa:

Just came back on-line this week and catching up with Nomads, emails, etc.

It was great to read your post about the efforts that your group is already putting into action, especially the pre-cycling. Love the PIGS!! No one else wants the waste for their pigs? Then get your own. Perfect!

I'm not familiar with the green cone but it sounds really interesting. We'd love to come out and see how things are going some day if that works for you, now that we are back in Mulege.

And Mulegemichael:

We heard about your blender trick from mutual friends here at the park. Excellent, as long as you have a blender and power. I know, for those who don't have power, there are those kind of blenders you can attach to a bicycle to power it! :-) We have eyed those over the years, but for some reason, have never invested.