Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Franklin Selling Rain Barrels

The town of Franklin Department of Public Works is selling rain barrels and compost bins. I am tempted to pick up a second rain barrel for our house.

However, those compost balls they are selling are junk. We own one. They are too flimsy for the amount of material they can hold, causing the sphere to deform and the lid to pop off when rolled. I suppose you could stick to composting just a few pounds of wastes at a time, but then for the months that they spend composting, you have to do something else with all the compostables coming out of your kitchen. That means either a second (and possibly a third, fourth, and fifth) compost ball, or landfill (which defeats the purpose).

For serious composting, a plain wood box works better. Or, heck, the cheapest (if ugliest) route is just to make a pile on the ground.

Thanks to Franklin Matters for the heads-up.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We've found a great way to add natural material to our compost pile while cleaning our rain gutters. We use a tool called the Gutter Clutter Buster attached to our wet/dry vac and vacuum out all gutter debris. It goes directly into the vac canister which we then dump into our compost pile or around our plants & trees for extra layer of mulch. It's soooo easy!