YOLO Compost Tumblers are well-suited for use in homes that have no gardens and where the main purpose of composting kitchen waste is to reduce the volume of trash that you’re sending to landfill.
Food waste and table scraps that go into the trash bin end up in landfill sites. Without the right conditions, this nutrient-rich organic material does not turn into nourishing compost. Instead, the material rots to give off methane, a greenhouse gas that is released into the air and contributes significantly to global warming.
Food waste has a high water content. In the landfill environment, the water that comes out of the food waste, leachate, mixes with all the other materials in the landfill to create a toxic sludge. This is bad stuff! Fouled leachate seeps through the ground below the landfill and contaminates ground water, which makes its way into rivers and lakes. This poisons not only the fish and creatures living in the water but also those that drink the water and eat these creatures, including people.
By composting your food scraps, you reduce the amount of methane produced by landfill as well as the volume of toxic leachate that poisons ground water. An added benefit is that considerably less waste is sent to landfill.
The YOLO Compost Tumbler is a sealed container that takes little space, is odour free and produces compost in only a few weeks. It loves ‘green’ nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps, vegetable peelings, tea leaves and coffee grounds and ‘brown’ carbon-rich materials like shredded paper and cardboard. This is waste that we all discard much of every week.
What do you then do with the compost that you’re producing if you don’t have your own garden?
- Give it to friends with gardens
- If you’re in a housing complex, contribute your compost to the communal gardens
- Donate it to a nearby vegetable garden feeding scheme school and community initiatives
- Deliver bags of your compost to a local school for their fields and gardens
- Dig your compost into the ground around the base of trees in your street
- Jump into guerilla gardening by planting and maintaining flowers or vegetables on unused or abandoned ground for other people to enjoy. Use your compost to nurture these plants
If you live in an apartment, a patio, balcony or courtyard is the perfect place for your YOLO. Otherwise, consider communal space like in an area of the gardens, the trash disposal area or even the roof of the building.
Speak to the landlord, neighbours and managing agent and consider placing a few YOLO Compost Tumblers in a convenient communal area to be shared by the residents. The information on the side of every YOLO Compost Tumbler will remind residents what they can and cannot add. The compost generated can be used in the communal garden.
Creating compost, even if you don’t have a garden, is possible and it contributes a great deal of good to the environment and your community.