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Category: Food Waste Recycling

Let it snow – but carry on composting

Posted on by Julie Halford

 Snow is on the ground at Great Green Systems HQ right now – providing a timely reminder not to leave your little green friend out in the cold. (I’m thinking of your compost bin but perhaps you have other little green friends).

Keep ‘elfy’ conditions in your composter

Follow our cold weather tips and keeeep composting! (with apologies to Strictly Come Dancing…)

Green Johanna

  • Check that the vents at the bottom of the Johanna are not blocked by leaves or debris (or snow!) Air is taken in at ground level so keep this area clear so that air can enter freely. The incoming air goes up past the four ventilation plates on the inside of the base plate, past the maturing compost layer up into the decomposing compost where it provides oxygen for the composting micro-organisms.
  • Also check that the Johanna’s Insulating Jacket doesn’t cover the ventilation holes. The jacket should be installed with the two upper sections pulled down so they overlap the section underneath by about 5 cms. Doing this leaves the ventilation holes clear.
  • In freezing weather limit ventilation through the lid’s ventilation system – twist the lid towards the minimum setting (in summer it should be fully open on the maximum setting).
  • The pre-Christmas period is a good time for getting some great carbon sources ready. Ordering presents or appliances online means they might arrive packed in lovely, corrugated cardboard, which is fantastic for adding airflow to the bin.

Packaging provides airflow

  • Now you’ll be glad you stored those leaves. Keep them in lidded containers to keep them dry. If you have loads, keep a large composter, such as the Graf Thermo King 900L, specifically for leaf mulch and take some leaves from the top as carbon sources for the Johanna. Dead leaves are great for absorbing moisture in waste with a high water content, such as bokashi bin contents or fruit waste.
  • If you see tree surgeons at work locally, it’s worth asking if you could take some woodchips or they might deliver them to you for free. Wood chips are good for creating airflow and adding plenty of fungi to the bin.
  • Give the bin’s contents a boost by adding bokashi bran, ground coffee granules or a layer of soil or mature compost.  
  • If you’re setting your Johanna up in winter, don’t be tempted to rush and omit the foundation layer of around 15 -20cms of woody garden waste. Some people ask us if they really have to do this, and the answer is yes. From the beginning, it helps to create airflow from the bottom up through the composter as well as adding structure for drainage. Then add two bucketsful of soil or mature compost to add a healthy amount of micro-organisms right from the start.  

Bokashi bins

  • If you’ve kept your bokashi bins fermenting in a shaded spot outside in the summer, move them indoors. Bokashi bins shouldn’t be exposed to extreme temperatures, which might mean micro-organisms overheating or freezing depending on the season.  When the bin is full and needs to be left to ferment for two to three weeks, if you want it out of the way store it in a garage or shed as long as it won’t freeze.  

Wormery

  • Wormeries should also be placed where they won’t be exposed to extremes of temperatures. Depending on your location, move an outdoors wormery to a sheltered area or if it is to stay outside, cover with a tarpaulin.  Keep worms warm with plenty of bedding and a hessian blanket.

Green Cone

  •  Stock up on accelerator powder – you will need more than usual to boost the process now that there is less sun to provide energy for the solar-powered unit.  
  • Even if you have more food waste than usual over the Christmas period, make sure you never allow food waste to come higher than the Cone’s underground basket. Food waste must never be above ground level inside the Cone itself.

Remember your usual best composting practices, whatever the weather:

  • Regular feeding: Keep adding to the bin to maintain the composting process. The generous 330 litre size of the Green Johanna means the mass of contents acts as an insulating factor.  If your household is small and struggles to add enough content in winter with the lack of gardening clippings, accept food waste from neighbours, as some of our customers do.
  • Chop items up. Smaller items provide a larger surface area for more microbes to work on.  This means higher temperatures and faster breakdown.
  • Ensure a good balance – adding a caddy of food waste (rich in nitrogen) followed by a caddy of carbon-rich materials (dead leaves, shredded paper and cardboard, twigs, branches, woodchips) is a good habit to get into.
  • Check moisture levels – especially if you’ve added a lot of dry autumn leaves (carbon) which could make the mix dry. Composting contents should have a moisture level of around 50 per cent, with the consistency of a wrung-out bath sponge. Add rainwater from a water butt (in a watering can with a fine rose) if the materials are becoming too dry. Don’t just check the top layer, get handfuls from lower down the bin too. Check by using a moisture meter or by doing the squeeze test – wearing gloves, take large handfuls of compost in both hands and squeeze – only a drop or two of liquid should emerge. If there are no drops, the compost is too dry and needs watering.
  • Regular aeration – it’s important to keep adding air to the bin as the aerobic microbes breaking down the waste need air to breathe. Without air, the contents will turn anaerobic and start to smell.   

Don’t forget to pay attention – getting into the habit of knowing what’s happening in the bin enables you to take corrective measures to prevent problems. 

Keeping compost warm when temperatures drop

Posted on by Julie Halford

Hot composting is basically a set of techniques. By following these techniques you can achieve higher temperatures and faster decomposition than traditional regular composting, which is usually referred to as cold composting.

If you want the simplest way to achieve higher temperatures, then using a well-designed unit such as the Green Johanna, along with its Insulating Jacket, is your best bet. We have many customers who hot compost without the jacket, but they tend to be experienced composters who want active involvement in managing the bin.  

Some members of the Great Green Systems team keep the Johanna’s jacket on virtually all year round, removing it in the summer during hot weather when the compost temperature approaches 70 degrees Celsius.

 We recommend that in winter if external temperatures fall lower than 5 degrees Celsius the jacket should be added to avoid the composting process stalling.  

The jacket gives you more control. As well as helping to raise the temperature, you also have the option of removing it in order to lower the temperature if it gets too hot. Temperatures above 70 degrees will become too hot for the composting creatures to survive. If these aerobic micro-organisms start to die off, the process could stall so the jacket should be removed to allow the bin to cool down.

A Great Green Systems Johanna and jacket in January this year when the ground temperature was at zero, below.

But inside the Johanna the compost kept warm at 40 degrees C.

Some customers have expressed concerns that the Insulating Jacket will make the Johanna too hot for worms; this is not a problem because worms can easily enter and leave the composter through the small holes in the base plate. At temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius they will move where it is cooler, usually the bottom of the bin where the compost is maturing, or they can leave the bin completely.

A good fit

The Insulating Jacket is made from polyethylene and comprises three ring sections and a lid piece. When fitting the jacket, it’s essential that the bottom section does not cover the vents at the sides of the Johanna’s base as these are necessary for airflow.

The two upper sections should be added so that they overlap the section below by about 5 cms, ensuring that the ventilation holes at the top of the composter remain uncovered.  The jacket fits snugly so that no cold draughts can get in between the jacket and the bin.

 Composting outcomes depend on various factors and that includes the composter’s level of interest and involvement. Of course, as keen composters ourselves we are bound to say it’s a fascinating subject that can become an enjoyable hobby, but don’t just take our word for it.

Adam Johannes, also known to his customers and followers as Compost Guy, says he really enjoys the active hands-on involvement of aerating his Johanna. Anthea Rossouw, who has been teaching composting using Johannas for decades, both in this country and in South Africa, says she loves to see people who started out knowing nothing becoming evangelical about their new interest. A new customer who took up composting recently on retirement admits cheerfully that she has become ‘obsessed’.

We hear so many different stories depending on various locations covering the length and breadth of the country, whether that is in sheltered inland areas, wind-battered coastal regions, rural or urban, and indeed countries abroad too.

Even with the jacket added, don’t forget your good composting habits:

  • Feed regularly
  • Balance carbon/nitrogen ratios
  • Aerate regularly
  • Chop items small
  • Check moisture levels

And remember the Johanna was designed in Sweden to withstand temperatures of -20 degrees C. So wherever you are, with the jacket on, your Johanna is good to go this winter.  

What will you do with that pumpkin?

Posted on by Julie Halford

Along with all the tricks and treats, every year Halloween brings horror stories about how many pumpkins will end up in landfill or incineration. Around 15 -20 million apparently. Most of them haven’t been used as food first either. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Take note of the Great Green Systems’ Composters’ Halloween Plea, which goes like this:

Remember, remember, come the month of November,

Halloween brought fun and mirth,

But don’t let that pumpkin

Rot in a wastebin

When it could nourish the earth.

Don’t let your pumpkin lantern be one of those that contribute to greenhouse gases – compost it and feed the earth instead.

You can make an occasion of it and go along to a Pumpkin Smash. These are organised events where people are invited to take their used pumpkin lanterns to be smashed up in a variety of fun ways and then composted, putting nutrients back into the soil.

Check to see if there’s a Pumpkin Smash taking place near you. If you live in Leicester you no doubt know about the popular Pumpkin Smash at the Stokes Wood Allotments site. This year it takes place on November 4th starting at 10.30am, followed by a practical session on composting pumpkins and food waste in general. People are encouraged to also collect pumpkins from friends, schools or pubs to help reduce waste. The more the merrier – let’s smash a hole in that 20 million statistic!

 Let’s hope this great idea catches on and we see more Pumpkin Smashes all over the country next year.

A Pumpkin Smash is great way to teach kids about composting and wean them off the idea that wastebins are for everything.

If you use battery-powered tealights inside a lantern, the insides will be kept fresh enough to eat later.

 Don’t bin that pumpkin –

It’s better to get a Johanna!

A happy Halloween ending

To compost your used pumpkin, cut the skin into pieces (the cutters in Halloween lantern carving sets can be useful for this job) or use a spade to chop it up.

Get children involved by letting them add the pieces of pumpkin to a composter and stir in well together with woody garden waste, autumn leaves or scrunched paper and torn cardboard.

If you’d rather eat your pumpkin – yes, the whole pumpkin – this recipe’s for you.

We got it from Chef Dan at Kitche, the food waste fighting app. We tried and tested it and found it totally delicious.

ZERO WASTE PUMPKIN SOUP

Serves – 4

Time – 1 hr 30 mins

Ingredients

1 medium large pumpkin

3 large onions

3-4 garlic cloves,

Olive oil

1 litre vegetable stock

1 can coconut milk (optional)

Sprig of rosemary

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Wash, cut in half and gut your pumpkin, making sure to separate the flesh and seeds.

2. Crush garlic and finely chop the onions and add them to the pan, add oil and simmer until slightly golden.

3. Chop remaining pumpkin into large cubes and add them to a large pan with the pulp.

4. Finely chop your rosemary and add to the pan with your bay leaves, which you can leave whole.

5. Add your veg stock, making sure the ingredients are covered.

6. Add coconut milk if using.

7. Put on lid and let the pan come to the boil. Once bubbling, turn the heat down so the soup is simmering. Sort out the seeds while waiting.

8. The soup will take at least an hour to cook. Make sure the pumpkin skin is soft (this can take a little longer depending on the type of pumpkin).

9. Once it is ready, remember to take out the bay leaves and add salt and pepper to taste. Use a hand blender to make the soup smooth and creamy. Add water if required until it is your desired consistency. Can be stored in the fridge or freezer.

What to do with your pumpkin seeds?

The seeds make a great garnish. Lay them out on a baking tray and lightly salt them. They only take 5 – 10 minutes and burn easily. If you don’t want the seeds on soup, save them till spring and plant them in your garden.

***

 We also like this idea for pumpkin seeds from the organic online store Abel and Cole:

Give seeds a rinse, then toss in a little olive oil, salt and paprika and fry them for 5 minutes until golden brown – a great snack to serve at Halloween parties.

Helping the planet by switching to bokashi

Man emptying food into a bokashi bin
Posted on by Julie Halford

My parents and I were discussing the fact that their local council doesn’t yet operate a separate food waste collection.

My mum said it wasn’t a huge deal for them because they didn’t have any food waste anyway.

 I queried this; they must have food waste.  She maintained that they didn’t.

I said I wondered if they ate eggshell sandwiches, or tea bag pie, or perhaps apple core crumble. She said she wondered if I was being sarcastic.

Of course, they didn’t eat those things, she said, but that wasn’t waste ‘because you couldn’t eat it anyway’. It became clear that the word ‘waste’ meant different things to each of us.  

‘Our generation sees waste as something you scrape off your plate,’ Mum said. ‘So it’s the result of not planning properly and cooking too much or putting too much on your plate.’

My parents’ generation of ‘war babies’ equate the word waste with wastefulness.

Wasting food

This might go some way towards explaining the confusion that arose some years ago when research was being done to establish what residents’ attitudes would be if their local council offered voluntary food waste collections. Researchers found that many people said they wouldn’t use a food waste collection because they had no food waste. This didn’t stack up as it didn’t equate to the amount of food waste that the councils had to dispose of. Perhaps these respondents were people of my parents’ generation who thought that if they weren’t ‘wasting’ food they had no food waste.

After our discussion, Mum started thinking about everything she threw in the bin. She realised that she created large amounts of peelings because she makes fresh soup every day.

The next time I visited, she said that because they didn’t yet have any information about when their council would start food waste collections, it had been preying on her mind that every scrap in their bin went to landfill.

But they also felt ‘too old at our age’ (81 and 84) to start stirring compost.

Starting with the belief that you’re never too old to save the earth, I came up with a solution – Team Bokashi. It would work like this:

  • A Maze bokashi bin indoor composter would fit neatly on their worktop, or under the sink, and they could scrape all their food waste into it.
  • By adding bokashi spray to each input of food waste, natural beneficial microbes are introduced which accelerate the fermentation process. (Bokashi is Japanese for ‘fermented organic matter’).
  • Because the waste ferments anaerobically (without air), there are no flies or smells.
  • Once the 14L bin is full, it is left sealed shut for two to three weeks while the contents are left to ferment. Then the contents would normally be added to a garden composter, where it acts as an accelerator, or buried in the garden to break down and become soil-building compost. But I don’t see my dad at 84 being keen to go round digging holes in his garden, so I said I would take the bin and add its contents to our own Green Johanna or Compost Tumbler and hand it back to them. Using two bins on rotation should do the job.

In a way, it’s our own version of what the ShareWaste app does – connecting people who would like to recycle their food scraps with other people who are already composting.

My dad came on board when I explained that the liquid you drain every few days from the tap at the bottom of the bin is a great organic drain cleaner that controls smells and prevents algae build-up.  You can also dilute it for use as plant feed, but it looked like the plants would have to go hungry. My dad has always had a thing about blocked drains. I think it’s a man thing. Using the bokashi drain cleaner might save them a small fortune on whatever gunk he normally chucks down the plughole, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing for the water system too.

I gave them the bokashi bin and left them to it. Would they become bokashi fans or might it be too much change too soon?

At first Mum argued that there was no space on the kitchen worktop (what with her soup maker, bread maker, food processor etc) for the bokashi bucket so it was given a home on the patio table outside. After a few weeks, however, she did rearrange her worktop space to accommodate the bokashi bin and the sky didn’t fall in.

No blocked drains

Dad expressed disappointment that he wasn’t getting the promised bokashi drain cleaner. I explained it was quite normal to go a week at first without liquid while the process got going. Then he forgot to check for a few days and ended up with half a jugful of the stuff. He was highly delighted. I could tell no drains were going to get the chance to get blocked around these parts.

Bokashi ‘tea’ drain cleaner

My parents reported that after a few early instances of forgetting they had a new food waste bin, they quickly got the bokashi habit. It was now unthinkable for them to throw food waste in the normal kitchen bin, as they had done for the past 80 years.

We have had our bokashi bins for a while, but it was only when I was transporting my parents’ bins back and forth in my car that I came to appreciate how portable they are.  The cube-type shape makes them sturdy and the three locking clips mean they don’t spill. And as for the effectiveness of fermented bokashi mixture as a compost accelerator – wow, our compost bins love it!

Bokashi convert

Mum is now a complete bokashi convert. She says she feels ‘empowered’ by being useful. It’s been six months now and I can tell there’s no turning back.

‘We all have to do something about the climate crisis,’ she says, ‘and this isn’t a lot to ask, especially when you consider the upsides.’

All that remained was to take a photo using Mum as a model for this blog, showing ‘People in their Eighties getting the Bokashi bug’.

But when I turned up to take her photo, Mum had just been to the dentist’s and was looking very elegantly groomed and made-up – and not a day over 60.

I was dismayed. ‘You’re going to ruin my photo, you don’t look old.’

‘Really?’ she said, delighted. ‘You’d better use your dad then.’

Julie

Man emptying food into a bokashi bin

Dad does his bit – using a bokashi bin

10 effortless tips to reduce kitchen waste

Posted on by Julie Halford

Tomorrow (July 2nd) marks the start of Net Zero Week and you could be forgiven for wondering, but not daring to ask, what exactly net zero means.

In a nutshell, it’s the world’s answer to stopping the climate crisis. Waste prevention plays a major role, with the goal being to send nothing to landfill, incinerators or the ocean.

What better way to set about achieving this aim in ordinary, everyday life than by sharing ideas and tips on how to prevent waste?  

There are so many excellent books, blogs and websites on this topic it can be difficult to know where to start.  Fortunately, I’m addicted to tips; I never met a tip I didn’t like, except maybe the one about overcoming arachnophobia by getting matey with spiders.

A more eco-friendly home

My new favourite ‘tip-tionary’ is Green Living Made Easy by former Great British Bake Off winner turned best-selling author Nancy Birtwhistle. This book, and its predecessor Clean and Green: 101 Hints and Tips for a More Eco-Friendly Home, are packed with super simple ideas that make you wonder why you never thought of them yourself.

Nancy was inspired to find a new, greener way of living following a family discussion about climate change when she looked around the table at the innocent, gleeful faces of her young grandchildren and wondered what lay in store for them.

In the first chapter Nancy makes a good point about the difficulty of visualising the reality behind the many statistics that are thrown at us on green issues:

‘I read that a staggering 6.6m tonnes of food is thrown away in the UK every year. I find figures and statistics like this difficult to absorb, preferring to deal with my own food waste at a micro level and instead concentrating simply on my own fridge.’

I think most of us can identify with this sentiment. If the climate crisis is caused by the actions of individuals multiplied by millions, it makes sense that the answer, in part, also comes in the form of individual actions.

Nancy describes the way she used to dispose of waste as ‘robotic’. I can’t think of a better word to describe the unconscious way we create waste – until the moment we wake up to the consequences of our actions and realise we can do better, often with very little effort.

When you consider that these micro changes save you money too, it’s a no-brainer.

Here are 10 of Nancy’s simplest kitchen waste saving tips.

  • 1. Thyme to save herbs

To double the life of shop-bought fresh herbs: dampen a double-thickness sheet of kitchen paper with cold water. Lay on it either parsley, coriander, dill, thyme, rosemary or mint after removing from the packet. Roll loosely so that all the sprigs are surrounded by a cold, damp blanket, then pop in an airtight box and keep in the fridge.

  • 2. Freeze cheese please

To avoid cheese becoming hard and dry: buy a large slab of cheese – cut the block into 100g pieces. Put one block back in the original pack to use this week, then put the remaining pieces in a container in the freezer. Then for the next few weeks you have cheese that can be grated or used once thawed in the fridge for an hour or so.

  • 3. Take stock of veggies

The best way to accumulate sufficient veggie bits for a stock is to keep a large plastic box or bag in the freezer and pop into it the ends of celery, parsley stalks, trimmings from onions, carrots, parsnips, pea pods, leeks and any other tasty veg. Once you have a large box or bagful, place in a large pan and simmer for half an hour or in a slow cooker for several hours. Strain, keep in the fridge for five days or freeze to be used later as a base for casseroles, soups, pie fillings and stews.

  • 4. Piece of cake

Use a roll of reusable baking parchment instead of new greaseproof paper every time you bake. Use the bases of your favourite cake tins as a template, then cut the reusable parchment to size. Wash between uses.

  • 5. Bag-tastic

 The plastic liners in cereal boxes can be used to separate almost anything and make a good alternative to cling film. If you unpeel the seams of the bag this can then be used for pastry rolling. They also make good bread bags and freezer bags, sandwich wraps and for using in lunch boxes and picnics.

  • 6. Don’t shell out on eggs

Many baking recipes call for only egg yolk or egg whites, leaving leftovers of both. Egg whites freeze beautifully (for up to a year) and thaw in a bowl at room temperature in an hour or so.

Egg yolks can be frozen but need a light sprinkle of salt or sugar to prevent them going rubbery. Nancy rarely freezes yolks, instead making a quick lemon curd using the yolks, sugar, butter, lemon juice and zest. Stir on a low heat for several minutes until the mix slowly thickens. Store in a clean jar in the fridge.

  • 7. Scrap happy

Packs of bacon can lead to waste if a couple of rashers are left in the packet to dry up and go off before you know it. Instead, keep a small box of cooked scraps in the freezer. Cook the random rashes until crispy. Break them up into small pieces and pop them in a box to save in the freezer. Use these scraps as a pizza topping, stirred into pasta or sprinkled over salads.

  • 8. Spice of life

Nancy buys ginger or lemongrass only once or twice a year, keeping them in a plastic box in the freezer. She breaks ginger root into chunks and grates both the skin and flesh from frozen, then puts the unused root back into the box for next time.

She also freezes chillies and uses them from frozen. With lemongrass – trim the root ends and leaves, then freeze and slice from frozen to use.

  • 9. The besto pesto

Did you know that nettles have more vitamins and nutrients than many other green veggies? The sting is destroyed by blanching. Wear rubber gloves to handle them. Bring a pan of water to the boil, then add the leaves. Have a bowl of cold water at the ready. Blanch the leaves in boiling water for 30 seconds then use tongs to remove them and plunge into cold water to halt the cooking process. Drain the leaves, dry on a clean cotton towel and squeeze as much water out as you can. Whizz in a blender with parmesan, garlic, nuts, lemon juice, salt, pepper, olive oil. Freeze in an ice cube tray.

It’s a good idea to also freeze leftover shop-bought pesto in an ice cube tray, since it needs to be used within five days of opening.

  • 10. Chit chat

Save egg boxes for potato chitting (encouraging them to sprout). The cardboard moulds keep potatoes upright, the soft material doesn’t damage the shoots and the open design offers plenty of light.

Nancy says: ‘I understand where I have gone wrong over the past 50 years, but so few of us knew the impact we were having on our precious planet, its resources, wildlife, weather systems etc. There is no time to waste, so whatever your life is right now – one change, any change, will make a difference.’

So true. There’s no point crying over spilt milk or hard cheese.  We can’t change what we did in the past but we can change what we do from today.

So let’s save the earth – one fridge at a time.

Julie

Spare Parts