Dear Umbra,
I am a college student. I eat a lot on the go. Not fast food or boxed meals, but when I leave my dorm I usually grab an apple, banana, or other fruit/veggie to eat as I walk to my destination. I don't compost, instead I just throw the banana peel or apple core into the bushes. I like the thought that maybe one day my apple core will become an apple, or that my banana peel will help nourish that piece of ground/animals in the area over ending up in a landfill. To me this eco-littering is an opportunity for new life. I know that it takes a long time to biodegrade as a piece of fruit tossed in the bushes, but I think that, on a smaller scale (not all of society throwing their food scraps into our green places), it's not a bad thing. But I've heard that this eco-littering isn't terribly good. I don't really know and I kinda like my fantasy world where it is. Is my eco-littering OK? Should I start to properly compost my food?
Brendan
Moscow, Idaho
Dearest Brendan,
Mulch what you don't munch.
Photo: iStockphoto
Many angles to consider here -- or, there's more than one way to peel this apple. Is that the expression? Am I conflating skinning a cat with peel me a grape?
We'll sort through the peelings, but let's start with the end and say: It would be better to properly compost your food.
Partly this has to do with citizenship. What you are doing is just plain old littering, and from a civic standpoint, it's improper. Mind you, I think most people throw food into the bushes one way or another. My mother threw apple cores out the car window into roadside woodlands, I throw plum pits under the apple trees in my back yard. But one is not meant to do it in either frequented public places or in remote locales; other people who encounter your litter may find it repulsive. It may spoil their pleasant bush-side jaunt, they may feel the need to clean up after you, they may be gardeners maintaining the bushes who find your rotten leavings. We vote, and recycle, and drive less, because we believe that one person has an impact. By this logic, one person's litter makes a difference. Not a good difference. There should be all types of activism in the environmental movement, but I don't think fruit rinds send a clear enough message to count as activism.
At an ecological level, discarded fruit leavings are not the cat's meow either. Almost none of the produce you discard will sprout new life. An apple seed or a plum pit might, because these grow in your area, but due to the unpredictable nature of sexual reproduction in domesticated tree fruit, the resultant tree would likely be a weird, unrecognizable, and less tasty fruit. If you live in a human-dominated landscape, it will be torn up. Any animals that eat the fruit will be scavengers who have other food sources, because no animal could build a life on waiting for banana peels. In a worst-case scenario, an innocent animal would eat your garbage and suffer indigestion or death. (I'm kind of making the death part up, but it doesn't seem utterly out of the question.)
Those are some of the reasons why we should stop throwing our produce bits about. True, one alternative is to throw them in the garbage, where they will be interred for centuries. But the other alternative, composting them, fulfills almost all the aspects of your fantasy world. If you were to compost your pits and peels, they would transform themselves into nourishing plant nutrients. Composted material isn't just more aesthetically pleasing than rotting banana peels, it has a chemical and structural difference that is beneficial to plants. If you then threw this material under the bushes -- oh, happy bushie day.
Luckily for you, basic information about all sorts of composting is just a click away, on this very website. May your fantasy life simply improve as you change your leftover hummus into humus.
Painfully,
Umbra
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Comments
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reidhaus Posted 3:22 am
10 Oct 2007
#2 - Unless you like increasing the population of rats and other rodents, do the world a favor and properly dispose of your trash!
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rkw Posted 3:37 am
10 Oct 2007
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estark Posted 3:53 am
10 Oct 2007
Umbra, tell your mother than tossing scraps out of car windows only invites wildlife dangerously close to roads. There are many more fatalities caused by animals scavanging near roadways than you'd like to think. Millions and millions of innocent animals are hit by cars every year. You need to think how your personal choices impact other species besides humans, down the proverbial stream.
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tboggia Posted 4:39 am
10 Oct 2007
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tomtrevathan Posted 5:05 am
10 Oct 2007
Most of us did this for years before we had garbage pickup; we had to do something with spoiled items that didn't ruin our area. Today you only have to think about it, and take time to save a little more of our planet.
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tmurphyaz Posted 6:00 am
10 Oct 2007
I had not thought about tossing fruits (that do compost quickly) out a car window as detrimental by attracting wild life close to the road. Very good point, I'll get my apple core tossing boyfriend to knock that off!
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kstepan Posted 6:37 am
10 Oct 2007
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cferoni Posted 6:48 am
10 Oct 2007
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gwood Posted 8:12 am
10 Oct 2007
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sppur848 Posted 8:51 am
10 Oct 2007
Do us all a favor, put garbage in the trash. If that doesn't "A Peel" then try to start a composting program on campus.
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dbeerslayer Posted 2:25 pm
10 Oct 2007
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Des Emery Posted 2:39 pm
10 Oct 2007
As many of the other posters tell you ecology means actual work. It's not easy. But surely the school has a re-cycling program - just eat a little more slowly and make it last until you get there.
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econpolyeco Posted 11:45 pm
10 Oct 2007
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The Recycling Lady Posted 12:24 am
11 Oct 2007
Litter attracts litter, even if it's biodegradable. People see one piece of litter and they think "this is where some one else did it, so I can too". Pretty soon you have lots of litter.
Humans carry germs that can make animals sick. So even if you think it will compost or not attract an animal to a dangerous place or not become something animals come to depend on, any animal that might eat or even smell that waste can get sick and make others sick as well.
Waste in Place! Do the planet a favor and compost your biodegradable garbage. You are doing the world a disservice by tossing it anywhere else.
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Rudmin the Green Posted 1:05 pm
11 Oct 2007
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Rudmin the Green Posted 1:10 pm
11 Oct 2007
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Rudmin the Green Posted 1:49 pm
11 Oct 2007
I guess I agree with all you pro-composters afterall. Just, please don't burn me in efiggy if I take a calculated shortcut and stick an apple core in some landscaping mulch. I guess that is composting right?
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mzungumasai Posted 6:09 pm
11 Oct 2007
Even comments which seem resonable may not be encouraging or helpful. 'Do us all a favor, put garbage in the trash.' Contrast that to this 'I was always wondering about this! thanks for the good question!' The first one definitely does not encourage one. Rather it seems to say with negative undertones, stop causing problems, throw your food away. Whereas I would definitely appreciate a response like 'People 'eco littering' has always been a pet pieve of mine. I'm glad that you took the initiative and questioned whether what you are doing is right. I am also glad that there is so much positive knowledge out there to be shared. I know a lot about the postive impacts of composting vs. 'eco littering. If you have any questions or want to learn more don't hesitate to contact me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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2wheelsgood Posted 10:41 am
12 Oct 2007
It's all in how the question is phrased. Terms like "Eco-littering" are inherently judgemental and unproductive in the context of the question. The origin of the fruit (domestic or foreign) may or may not have a bearing on the answer either.
Gardeners who grow their own food know how the system works. We compost whatever we can get in our yard. I pick up bags of leaves my neighbors have so carefully collected and put out, from up and down the street to enrich my garden soil each fall. A few passes over it with my mulching mower and I have 2 inches of rich leaf mulch to protect my garden from winter rains. I bring coffee grounds home from the office to keep them out of a landfill and reuse the organic material naturally scattered across my lawn.
The poster who mentioned how much natural material comes out of trees and bushes each year, is right. One apple core is miniscule in comparison. Nature is equipped to compost, if we can provide the material in a form she can use to our mutual advantage.
I have a reusable ziploc bag in my pack which I use to carry home my compostables (my first preference). But I have also been known in a pinch to do the following: break the apple core into tiny pieces and scatter it or bury it under some mulch. I feel this is okay because a.) it is no longer recognizable as human origin (litter); b.) I know it will break down quickly on the geologic timeframe, and is still far better for the planet than putting that item in a landfill forever.
We all know that "Compost Happens". I say any composting (done responsibly so as not to cause odors or attract vermin) is better than landfilling.
Think of the apples that fall in the orchards, at this time of year. What happens to them? They rot. It is how nature works. The orchards are not overrun with rats, people. Maybe a few bees scavenging the sugar for their nests.
Obviously the questioner had already given this much thought and deserves a far more subtle answer than Umbra provided today. Guerilla eco-composting of food waste can be done responsibly, and need not consist of wantonly tossing a recognizable piece of garbage onto a roadside or into the nearest shrubbery.
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BayardSquareHood Posted 12:08 pm
12 Oct 2007
No one has said anything about setting a good example for any children who may be watching. If kids happen to witness my fruit flotsam flying, they may think littering is okay! Bad!
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Des Emery Posted 1:56 pm
12 Oct 2007
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mzungumasai Posted 5:48 pm
12 Oct 2007
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hillhi Posted 4:59 am
15 Oct 2007
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