Options in Home Food Waste Management

Until I started juicing I had absolutely no idea how much waste was generated per ounce of juice from pound of fruit and veg. And I do mean pounds of fruit and veg... as in +500 grams, or three cups of cored sliced applies (195 calories).... or however you choose to do the math. As I juiced each weekend, I came to see that one 16 ounce serving of juice generated a lot of wet, mushy, organic byproduct. The pulp does not taste fantastic a la carte. It takes up a lot of room in the freezer. It quite frankly is a pain to think about and more difficult to deal with if you want to avoid the trash can.

Option 1: Green Waste Bin FAIL! Most recycling programs don't like it when you mix food waste and green waste. The rotting effect is not pleasant and has a tendency to be detremental to the mulching process.... California public agencies are working on it, I promise (see Assembly Bill 1826), but I strongly advise against trying this disposal method until otherwise directed by your local waste management authority.

Option 2: Compost it! I built a composting area in the yard using scrap pallets... builder beware of spiders and rusty nails. Using half remembered rules from my grandparents' compost pile, I made sure the material was covered to keep it moist. I used a combination of shade, leaves and cardboard... the cardboard melted after a while and looked really trashy. The leaves were an unnecessary mess to flop around... I recommend a different approach. In retrospect, my grandparents built a little shed in the back part of the farm space for their compost pile. That may work better, if you have the land.  The compost pile was watered weekly because the starter soil was sandy and dry - the water mostly ran off or turned the mix into clayey rocky hard pan. So my next bit of advice - start with okay soil... it will make the process more inspiring (you see good soil faster) and less messy. 

There is also an art to keeping the right mix of moisture and muck in the compost heap. Per YouTube, it is important to ensure that all food was cut up into smallish chunks (it helps dry the material out, rather than rot), and helps prevent or minimize the draw for rats/cats/vermin... and makes it easier for you to spread the material across the compost (again to increase pile-food contact to minimize mucky-mold growth and maximize worm allure). It was heavy work to turn the pile daily to keep the works interested and the much activated... my back was not happy many days... but if you have the time, space energy and use... composting takes care of a lot of material and generates a lot of good soil.

Option 3: In Garden Worm Bins. If you're lucky enough to be planting into soil, where the worms grow, you can create vermicompost directly in your garden. Tree Hugger has a good how to description here. The troubles in the garden were inadequate capacity for all the green waste I juice generated... and spiders. Fear generating encounters with Recluse spiders was not something I enjoyed. But the manual waste management was negligible and the worms helped the garden quite a bit!

Option 4: Worm Bins in Plastic. Composting in a barrel will a worm colony is not much easier than option 2... but it has the benefit of a smaller, possibly cleaner footprint. Some may claim you can create the much coveted worm tea from worm bins... but reader beware of possible bacterial risks associated with improperly digested leachate. More on that and proper worm tea creation here.. 

I kicked the bucket on the whole juicing-composting process last year. It was a fun experiment for a year or two, but now I happily dish out $10-$12 for 16 ounces of organic, sustainability harvested and properly waste managed juice (cold pressed from 3 whole pounds of fruit and veg locally grown but not by me or mine!). Now I know what all those dollars are for. The chiropractor!