A "magic box" that turns kitchen waste into treasure

During the epidemic, batches of catering chefs and baking masters have emerged in the circle of friends. In addition to enjoying the food they cook, the piles of vegetable leaves and fruit peels in the kitchen have also caused troubles for people at home. The stench from the accumulation of kitchen waste is simply a nightmare.

Fortunately, there is a box that can upgrade kitchen waste into "black gold soil". When you pass by this box, not only will you not smell any odor, but in winter, you can even feel warm when you get close to this box.

Sometimes life needs to be done the other way around. You create garbage, but garbage doesn’t necessarily have to be garbage.

The kitchen waste that people hate is treated with kindness

Every time you pass by a community trash can or a garbage transfer station, there is a high probability that a sour and unbearable smell will hit you. Adults frown and children run by quickly, pinching their noses and covering their mouths. The source of this unbearable smell is kitchen waste.

In my country, the proportion of kitchen waste to urban domestic waste is roughly between 37% and 62%. Kitchen waste has high moisture and organic matter content. Improper treatment will cause stench and attract insects and flies. When it is mentioned in the community, no one will help but frown.

But in many residents' homes in Zhengzhou Road Community in Qingdao, kitchen waste has become everyone's treasure.

Xu Jin, the person in charge of "Qingdao You and Me", is a skilled craftsman. She is a social worker by profession. She led her team to customize an action plan for the community to allow community residents to participate in environmental improvement by combining kitchen waste composting and community garden transformation. In this plan, they have a magical box that can convert kitchen waste into fertilizer in an odorless way, which is then used to build community gardens, creating a green self-circulating model of "kitchen waste composting - garden soil return - planting and beautification". Here, garbage sorting has become a meaningful and interesting thing.

So what’s so magical about this box? It’s also a compost box, so why does the kitchen waste here not produce any odor?

In fact, the structure of a compost bin is a bit like mocha coffee: one portion of espresso as the base, half a portion of chocolate sauce to blend the bitterness, another portion of hot milk for a smooth taste, and finally half a portion of fresh cream to decorate the rim of the cup.

This is what a compost bin looks like

1. Now put some dry branches or other coarse materials at the bottom: to provide space for air circulation in the compost pile;

2. Spread a layer of chopped fruit peels, vegetable leaves and other wet materials;

3. Spread a layer of fallen leaves from the roadside to cover the kitchen waste. You can also add a thin layer of soil and sprinkle water to moisten the entire surface of the compost: it serves to decorate the surface and cover up the smell;

Then follow steps 2-3 (kitchen waste - fallen leaves - watering) and continue adding compost materials until it is full. Then, turn the compost pile over once a month or so to allow all materials to fully contact the air and speed up the fermentation process.

The composition of mocha coffee is more similar to this: after a large amount of kitchen waste and fallen leaves are put into the compost pile, after about a week, the compost pile will emit steam, and the temperature can reach 40-60℃. Generally, it takes about 2-3 months in summer and about 4-5 months in winter to see the broken black compost. The complete decomposition of all materials, that is, the composting is complete, which takes about 6 months. (There are differences between the north and the south)

Sun Guiqin, a resident of the community, said that because she didn't like the sour smell of garbage after it left the house overnight, she used to mix the kitchen waste with domestic garbage and throw it away. At that time, she didn't know that the garbage could be converted into fertilizer to fertilize the flowers and plants at home. Now that she sees the community promoting such an interesting model of garbage sorting and recycling, she can't wait to participate.

In the Zhengzhou Road community, residents can get a small plastic bucket from community volunteers, which is specifically used to collect kitchen waste. The collected waste will be sent to the community's composting site and operated by community volunteer composters.

When these kitchen wastes fall into the hands of composters, it is like ingredients in front of chefs. The difference is that the composters pick up three-pronged farm tools, while the chefs pick up spatulas. The same thing is the eternal action: shovel it!

Every two or three days, community volunteer Master Li would come to the compost bin with his equipment and stir the compost with a three-pronged farm implement. "What is he doing? Why is there still steam coming out of it?" The elderly people who were taking a walk often watched curiously.

"This is our community residents separating out their kitchen waste for composting, and then building a community garden together." Master Li patiently explained, "This compost not only has no odor, but can also reach a temperature of 60 or 70 degrees, which can kill all kinds of bugs!" "It's out of the pot, steaming hot..." Master Li said loudly and happily as he turned the pile and looked at the steaming compost box, as if what he was turning over was not kitchen waste, but something super delicious!

▲Community staff stirs the compost bin

In addition, Zhengzhou Road Community also called on residents to use various kitchen waste to make environmentally friendly enzymes, handmade soaps, etc.

"These environmentally friendly enzymes are treasures and can be used in many places at home." Sun Guiqin introduced, "The filtered environmentally friendly enzymes can be diluted with water at a ratio of 1:500 and can be used to flush the toilet to eliminate toilet odors; the fishy smell left over from washing fish in the kitchen can be wiped away with environmentally friendly enzymes."

Not only are the enzymes environmentally friendly, but the handmade soaps of various shapes are also refreshing. "These are all made from waste oil from the kitchen.

The practice of Zhengzhou Road Community has proved that kitchen waste composting can not only reduce the amount of kitchen waste, recycle it and make it harmless, but also is a way to mobilize residents to participate in waste classification and community governance.

With the joint efforts of the community compost collection and management team (collecting household compost at a fixed point every day), the silver-haired flower protection team (actively providing community garden seedlings and compost bin setting and management), the skilled craftsmen team (actively taking on the responsibilities of community garden maintenance and community compost bin turning management), and the green housewives team (environmentally friendly enzymes, environmentally friendly soap making, participatory garden planning), kitchen waste has been turned into treasure, the sour smell of garbage has been replaced by the fragrance of flowers, and the Zhengzhou Road community has a brand new look.

▲Comparison of community environmental governance before and after

Community Plan

With the help of communication and cooperation among its member partner organizations across the country, the non-profit organization Zero Waste Alliance has jointly designed a set of public welfare projects suitable for the actual conditions of urban communities with One Foundation, namely the "One Community Plan."

As of June 2020, 152 public welfare organizations/volunteer groups across the country have joined the "big family" of the One Community Plan. By uniting and empowering the national local public welfare organization network, we can awaken, cultivate and drive more community environmental protection activists, promote the construction of zero-waste demonstration communities, make waste reduction and classification a daily habit for community residents, and work with the government and all sectors of society to solve the problem of garbage siege and pollution.

The Yiqifen community project makes "waste sorting" interesting. It includes three sub-project sections: cultivating community environmentalists, empowering community partners, and building a zero-waste community.