Composting for condo-dwellers
I gotta get me one of these. One of the best things about technology is its ability to enhance and modify more traditional ways of doing things. Anyone who has scanned their household receipts and documents and rid themselves of a filing cabinet of dead trees, knows exactly what I'm talking about.
It turns out that technology can enhance the way we deal with our garbage, too. As people become more concerned with the environment and with their ecological footprint, they are turning to gardening and composting as a way of living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. Instead of ditching your leftovers in the garbage and having them turn up in landfill, composting them leaves you with a scrumptious, nutritious pile of top-quality dirt to spread on your garden come springtime. Even those people tucked away in condos and high-rise apartments will generally have a use for some of this dirt, even if it's simply to stick in their window boxes and hanging baskets inside.
But composting can be a messy, smelly business, which is why most people put their compost heaps at the end of the garden. Never fear, condo dwellers -- technology has a solution for your composting dilemma.
Check this out: NatureMill has an electronic composter that artificially accelerates the whole process, while keeping it locked away in a smell- free, sanitised environment. Pitch your organic waste into this thing (no citrus or bones, please), and it will automatically turn it for you, while keeping it hot enough to decompose in weeks instead of months. A built-in air filter stops it stinking up your kitchen, and a compost tray at the bottom of the device collects the black gold, which you can use to delight your plants.
The whole thing uses 10 watts of energy, which is a little less than the average compact fluorescent lightbulb. And if you don't have enough space in your humble abode for the plants needed to use the soil, then you can always economise with one of these, or get a community garden plot. Or, if you are feeling particularly adventurous, you could embrace flower power wholeheartedly, and give guerilla gardening a try -- just be polite!
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech and Gadgets
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