At least once a day, one of us trots our little plastic bin out to the compost pile behind the shed. The bin holds 23 cups, so we're keeping 161 cups of egg shells, coffee grounds, bunny litter, vegetable peelings, banana skins, apple cores and so much more out of the landfill every week!
With all that organic matter going directly into the compost and slowly breaking down into a lovely fertile soil amendment for our garden, we really didn't have much need for a 60 gallon trash can.
I figured I'd save us some money by swapping our big can out for a little one, but while I was poking around on the city's website, I came across the Green30 Challenge. Switching out our trashcan meant we were eligible for a $75 rebate on a backyard composter. Sweet!
We already have a couple of different composting arrangements in the backyard, but I've been after one of those fancy tumbling barrel composters. Supposedly they make compost much faster, and the Envirocycle also has a means of capturing compost tea in the base. Besides, who can resist a good challenge?!?!
Apparently the City of Austin can't. Did you know our Zero Waste Plan calls for us to collectively reduce the amount of trash we send to the landfill by 90 percent?!?! We have untl 2040 to get there, but still...90 percent?!?! I'm impressed. I've been trying to stem the tide of things that come in and out of our household, but I'm just lollygaggin' compared to the city!