Apologies for all the posts this week; consider it my way of making up for the lengthy waiting times between some of our past posts. It's exam week at school (and in Japan, it seems like every other week is exam week) which means I have zilch to do all day. I don't bring this up to Katie, of course, whose admittedly understandable response would be to glare menacingly into my very soul, given that her school has recently put her in charge of potty training someone else's kids all day long. We'll keep you posted on how that goes.
In the meantime, I have some downtime with which to wax literary about a variety of topics. So today, I want to talk about composting. More specifically, I want to encourage you all to try it.
Now while my political leanings are fairly left of center, I don't consider myself the leftist type. I certainly wouldn't call myself a hippie tree-hugger, for instance. But recently, and maybe it has something to do with living in a country where so little is wasted, I've found myself becoming more and more interested in conservation and the little things normal folks like you and me can do to reduce the amount of waste in our lives.
In Japan, you don't have a choice when it comes to recycling - it's mandatory. It varies from location to location, but here in Amagasaki, you have to separate your burnable trash (food wrappers and various kitchen waste) from your non-burnable trash (plastic and glass bottles and cans). Each is picked up on a different day of the week. Further, there are one or two days a month where the trash guys come around and pick up things like paper & cardboard, metal objects, and even old appliances, though sometimes you have to pay extra for the latter if it's a large item like a TV or old refrigerator. So getting people to recycle in Japan is not an issue; they're doing it all the time.
The Japanese don't really complain about the whole "mandatory" part, because they have a seemingly built-in contempt for wastefulness. They even have an expression they like to trot out fairly often: mottainai, or "what a waste." Given the limited amount of livable space in the country, it's no surprise that everyone's keenly aware that there simply aren't landfills where garbage "magically" disappears to every week. Contrast this with the US, where New York City and New Jersey actually send their garbage to Virginia because they can't deal with it all. I can't imagine Hyogo Prefecture, for instance, knocking on, say, Niigata's door and asking, however politely (it is Japan, after all), that shitsureishimasu, very sorry, but could it humbly dispose of its humble garbage in Niigata's honorable backyard? There's just no space that hasn't already been claimed by people, industry & commerce, or agriculture.
Now there are a lot of behaviors Western journalists, upon returning home from their week or two in Japan, claim we should adopt from the frugal and efficient Japanese. Most of them are complete nonsense, and anyone who's spent more than a month in the country will tell you the same. However, I do think we should follow Japan's example regarding our attitudes and behaviors towards waste. It's with this in mind that Katie and I decided to start a compost pile.
First, what is compost? They sell it at any home supply store: it's that stuff you add to your soil to make your plants happy and healthy. That's the long and short of it. But what is it, really? Compost is the result of millions of chemical reactions occurring simultaneously, breaking down organic matter into its simplest components - carbon and nitrogen - the appropriate combination of which is like black gold when it comes time to grow those tomatoes out back. If it helps, think of the process as "controlled rotting".
Second, why should you compost? About 1/3 of your kitchen waste doesn't need to go in the trash can. You throw away things like banana peels, apple cores, autumn leaves, and grass clippings without a second thought, then trash day comes and the nice people take your bags to the local landfill, where that perfectly useful organic garbage is mixed in with plastics, metals, chemicals, and other unsavory and un-biodegradable refuse, buried, and as a result takes far, far longer to break down than it would have if properly composted. Also, you'll have a nice pile of compost you can use on your flowers and plants, and it won't cost you a cent. What's more, if you have enough, you can share it with your more horticulturally-inclined friends and neighbors (and charge them a nominal fee).
Third, how easy is it to make a compost pile? Easy! If I, a lazy individual by almost every objective standard, can make one, then so can you. I'll give you an example of how easy it is: did you just eat a banana for breakfast? Are you holding the peel in your hand, ready to drop it into the rubbish bin? Why don't you, instead, take that peel out to the yard, and just drop it. That's right, just drop it right on the ground. There you go. That's the beginning. It's that easy. After that, just keep adding more and more organic material to the pile. Here are some links to help you get started:
You may run into some hitches here and there, but in general, a well-maintained pile stocked with appropriate material will not stink and will not attract rodents or other pests. Even if you experience problems, they're usually fixable. For example, right now our pile has a lot of ants and fruit flies (solution: bury exposed fruit and veggies lower in the pile and mix pile more often to disturb ant colonies) and smells strongly of ammonia (solution: too much "green" material, need to add more "brown"). Check out the troubleshooting sections of the above websites to guide you through any issues you may encounter.
Just remember, mottainai, and spare the trash man a hernia.
Good luck, and happy composting!
-Bob
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