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1. 

   caniscandida Posted 9:16 pm
   23 Feb 2007

   a little clumsy, perhaps?

   In principle, this is a promising project, especially if the students and their teachers at each school that enters the contest have a real garden in mind.  That would be a great thing: one can readily imagine certain students getting excited about working in their own gardens, as well as about exerting authority in reforming how garbage from their school cafeterias is to be disposed of.  Of course, having their own garden presumably would require an offer by the school or the neighborhood to provide some serviceable land, and a commitment by the students and the adults who supervise them to remain engaged through the months of the summer vacation.

   Aesthetically, I have doubts about the decorated and autographed compost bins as prizes.  The designs and the autographs are wonderful in themselves; but do they really work, on compost bins?  Of course it is a great idea to include compost bins as parts of the prizes to the schools, but I wonder if it made sense to decorate them.  The designs do not seem to show up well on them, and anyway, who would see them, aside from the student-gardeners themselves, if the bins are going to be placed outside, in an out of the way spot?

   Would it not be more effective to reproduce the designs on large murals, to be hung perhaps in walls of cafeterias or some other suitable place?  And then also they might be printed in especially durable materials, and be affixed or transferred to signs at the gardens themselves.

   Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

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2. 

   Roz Cummins Posted 12:16 am
   24 Feb 2007

   Even if only the students see the bins...

   ...that's enough. Decorated bins can make a garden seem more personalized and more welcoming to those who work in it. My only question is a technical one: will the paint stick to the bins when the bins are outdoors? In my experience (having painted garbage cans myself) once the sun and the rain do their work, the paint eventually peels off. But perhaps these bins are destined to stay indoors?

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