Cohousing-L Mailing List: A composting program at a LARGE cohousing -- How??

[Audrey Watson (audrey]

We have both "food scrap composting" and other greenery composting.  The 
other greenery (weeds, clippings, leaves etc) we do in the stacks of 
different age stuff, that gets turned occasionally.  The food:  we tried 
the outdoor composting (attracted rats), we only have 10 chickens, so 
they couldn't eat 30 households of scraps, we tried worm bins (they went 
anaerobic in the winter, and you could smell them a block away,  I think 
in the winter  the worms couldn't handle the volume), and we tried 
burying it, but that was just too labor intensive.  We looked at 
commercial composters, but they tended to be too expensive (google 
islandwood and food composting, you can see a big one they have that is 
>$12000),  we ended up buying a Clivus composting toilet on Ebay, (and 
we have a garbage can lid where a toilet might have been)  and 
installing that outdoors (can send pictures),  and it seems to manage 
our volume of food waste just fine.   It still takes some maintenance, 
but less than the non-functional worm bin.
--audrey
winslow cohousing
bainbridge island, wa