Free in NYC: Compost

mmm compost!

If you’re monitoring your grocery bills as closely as I am (ok, I admit it, I have no idea how to do this), you probably feel the same sense of pain when you’re forced to throw away a bag of spinach that’s turned brown or a pack of blueberries that mysteriously turned fuzzy.  The phrase “throwing money down the drain” has a new meaning as you see your hard-earned dollars and cents become literal trash.

And though many foods are unable to be salvaged, there’s still a way to relieve your conscience about disposing of your now-inedible products: compost.

Though I’m still unable to eat my browned bananas and coffee grounds, I feel better knowing that my scraps are going into community gardens to grow new, sustainable food products.

And the composting itself is easy! I have a space reserved in my freezer where I fill a plastic grocery bag with all my organic/natural/fresh/spoiled food scraps and when the bag reaches its limit, I merely drop it off at the Greenmarket on my corner. It’s as easy as taking out the trash and I feel like I’m going something productive with my waste!

(Bonus: our overheated, windowless living room/kitchen smells a lot less like garbage now that all the fresh scraps are frozen).

A full list of drop-off locations can be found here.

Happy Composting!

You can do it! Fo free!

Image: Courtesy of GrowNYC.org