Have you ever questioned why our food and garden waste is trucked off island while soil made elsewhere from those same materials is, at considerable expense, trucked back to the island for our gardens?
Many of us are questioning and want to change this equation by encouraging householders to build soil locally from our own food and garden waste. While many are successfully composting on Bowen, others have abandoned their efforts, especially with food waste because of bears, rodents and odour.
We invite you to learn about home composting and soil building. This event, to be held in Davies Orchard on August 6, is part of the first annual Sustainability Day, a Bowen in Transition initiative. There will be several vendors with a variety of composting solutions as well as local residents with successful soil building methods including the working compost site in the Heritage Garden.
Every effort has been made to address the challenges of bears, rodents and odours. These demos will include indoor options as well as robust outdoor composters. Displays will include ideas that are relatively new to us in North America but gaining momentum world wide and worthy of our attention. This features anaerobic digestion and bio-char initiatives and an array of containment choices for food scraps, containers and bags.
An important change that will directly impact us here on Bowen is coming: by the end of 2012, Metro Vancouver will ban food waste from the waste stream. This means that we will have to separate food waste from our general garbage and include it with our yard trimmings for pick up. This is part of our inspiration for having this event. What better time than now to begin the process of separating and adding food waste to our yard trimmings in order to build our own soil.
One day it may be feasible for Bowen to have an island wide composting system that allows us to keep all our organics such as yard trimmings, food and restaurant waste, and sewage sludge on-island. In the meantime, we can be responsible and develop our own household solutions to convert our food waste and yard trimmings to usable soil.
This event is collaboratively sponsored by Bowen in Transition, Zero Waste Bowen, and Bowen Heritage Association, with appreciated financial support from the Knick Knack Nook and the Bowen Island Municipality.
When: Saturday August 6, 10 a.m. -3:30 pm
Where: Davies Orchard - cabin 20 behind the Seabreeze Building in the Cove.
And don't forget about the First Annual Sustainability Tour on the same day. The tour begins at 10 am at the Home Composting Solutions event and takes off from there by bus to visit various island homes and businesses offering innovative solutions to living sustainably. Cost is $10 and pre-registration is required. Register by emailing [email protected].
