Composting in a Condo
In
an effort to reduce the volume of trash that our household creates, I
started investigating composting options. A couple of our neighbors compost at home, but this won't really work in our place right now.
Unfortunately, compost pick-up is not included with our regular
recycling and trash services (unlike places such as Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco or Pacifica), so here are our options:
Compost pick-up, paid separately.
Compost pick-up, paid separately.
There are a couple of companies that will provide this service for a fee, such as CompostNow, Cyrcle, and Let Us Compost. A summary of options in the southern states can be found here.
Compost drop-off points
In the DC area, the city of Alexandria has compost drop off points at local farmers markets. I am not sure if this is an option in our area, but I plan to keep searching.
Join a community garden
Many
community gardens offer composting on-site. This has the added benefit
of providing an opportunity to dig in the dirt and grow some nice
veggies. Although our schedules don't really allow for dedicated gardening right now, I contacted a nearby garden about starting to compost with them for free - hopefully this will work out. If not, I'll move forward with trying to get a paid pick up service going. The added benefit of the paid service is that they accept substantially more organic material than the nearby community garden.
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Things to consider if you live in a condo:
You
may need HOA or building management buy-in for pick-up services. Get approval to leave a
collection bucket by your front door or an easily accessible/secure
outdoor location. If you live in a gated community, make sure the
company has appropriate access codes.
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