Ask Umbra on Composting Endometria

[muninnhuginn]

Interesting thoughts about composting biodegradable sanitary protection. Is it worth investing in a wormery for this, I wonder. Most of our other compostable waste goes into our green bin since there's currently no gardening activity to use compost on.

There are, I suppose, two considerations:

• Effort: am I (and it will be me!) willing to tend to the worms instead of just putting all the compostable waste in the convenient green bin?
• Cost: there's an initial investment of c. £80 (is that about right? it's a figure I remember from somewhere, but I know there are folk out there who'll know) for perhaps ten years or so (based on my age and family history) when there's the extra feminine waste in addition to the potato peelings et al.

Actually, an average fixed cost of £8 seems great So it'd be effort that really swings it.

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put sanpro in our worm bin, but that's partly because G tends it, and thinks of the worms as pets. It isn't a great deal of effort, however - G checks on them every week or two in the summer, moves them into the shed in the winter, and grinds up baked egg shells to moderate the pH.

The Can-o-Worms is indeed UKP 80:

http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/shop/foundproduct.lasso?product_id=96&-session=shopper:540CA59C1d5291BB33ShP18B4935

[muninnhuginn]

Useful link that. Thanks.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Umbra says "I'm going into the meat thing here because our bodily effluent is basically meat, right?". And the green bins take food waste including uncooked meat. Have you asked the council if the sanitary products are acceptable in the green bin? They might not be for the same reason that biodegradable plastic bags aren't, but they might be.

[muninnhuginn]

I'm assuming that if disposble nappies aren't acceptable, then other human waste won't be either. I'm not certain I'd be happy with a possible fortnight's lag between putting things like this (even paper wrapped) into the green bin and having them collected either. (It'd be a horrible mess if the bin were overturned and emptied across the street.)

[armb.livejournal.com]

Nappies contents are different and aren't "basically meat, right?" - the Umbra column links to an earlier one on composting toilets (http://grist.org/advice/ask/2005/11/21/toilets/index.html). I agree with you about the lag - I know some people find that a problem for kitchen waste.
(In theory here in East Cambs where we don't have green bins we can put kitchen waste wrapped in newpaper in the fortnightly brown paper bags, but personally we don't. Vegetable waste goes on the compost heap (at least mostly), meat goes in black bin sacks.)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Have you considered a Mooncup or the various other little rubber collectors you can insert to collect menstrual blood.. they seem to get rave reviews, and you can just pour the collected fluid down the loo or sink, or some people feed it to houseplants.

I like the idea of a wormery as a composting device but I think I'm a bit squicked at the prospect of using it to decompose sanitary protection, personally.

[muninnhuginn]

I've read about--and indeed thought hard about--the mooncup and I've not yet been convinced. Partly it's the old dog (bitch?) not wanting to learn new tricks and also some more practical considerations.

I, too, like the idea of a wormery, regardless of the prospect of using it for disposing of sanitary protection.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Various people on my flist wax lyrical about them from time to time so they seem a good idea but I'm not sure I have quite that much co-ordination these days! :)