For sale: Home composting bins for Kathmandu

By now anybody who reads a newspaper should know that around 65% of the garbage we throw out is organic waste – that means vegetable peelings and stalks, tea bags, uneaten food, garden clippings, old flowers etc etc. When the garbage collection system breaks down, its these things that start to make Kathmandu smell – but it doesn’t need to.

All of that stuff can go into a compost bin (or into a biogas thing if you happen to have one) and produce good compost which you can use to grow vegetables on your balcony or roof-top or flowers. Or you can give it / sell it to someone who does these things.

So if we all did that, there would be 65% less waste dumped at great expense to everyone in Kathmandu. And how much cleaner it would be?

But where do you buy a compost bin and how much does it cost?

Ideally you get one from KMC at their site at Teku, if you know where to find it. In the kit you get all you need to start clean and smell-free composting right away, plus you get a manual which explains how it should be done.

You can also buy a bin from the WEPCO office. It costs [price to be checked]. We can deliver around Kupondole / Sanepa,  help you set it up and show you how to use it.

Get in touch if you are interested.

We can also show you alternative ways of composting or talk to you about biogas if you produce a lot of waste.

KMC Composting bin. Available from KMC, Teku Kathmandu as well as WEPCO

Also available in green - sometimes.

Problem with fruit flies in your kitchen or on your compost?

Its common and just nature being nature. There are some useful tips here and worthwhile to read this brief article. Below are some key points.

http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/flies.htm

Flies in the kitchen…

The adults lay their eggs, invisible to the naked eye, on bananas and other fruits, which later hatch while the fruit is in our fruit bowls. If we put fruit skins containing fruit fly larvae into our compost bins, we soon have a healthy population of fruit flies in and around the compost bin.

How to trap them!

…place a banana peel inside a clear plastic container and make three or four holes in the cover with a standard round toothpick. Be sure to pull the toothpick all the way through the plastic and wiggle it around to make a hole large enough for a fruit fly to crawl through. Place the plastic container in or near the fruit bowl, not inside the compost bin. (If the compost bin is not in your kitchen, place the fruit fly trap on a surface above the compost bin; if it is inside or too close to the compost bin, the odor of the banana peel will not be distinct enough to attract the fruit flies as effectively). Within 24 hours, about 99 percent of the fruit flies will be inside the plastic container, having entered the holes and not found their way out. Each day, take the container outside and release the fruit flies…

And flies in your compost bin…

If fruit flies become a nuisance in an outdoor compost bin, this indicates that the ratio of food scraps to high carbon material is too high. Add enough high carbon materials, such as brown leaves, shredded paper or cardboard, until this material comprises at least 50 percent of the total material in the bin. Try to keep about 12 inches of high carbon material on the surface of your pile, under which the food scraps are buried.

 

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