Bones, bones, bones

Thanks to a comment from a woman on an earlier blog post, we have been able to avoid meat waste for the past 2 months by storing the bones in our freezer, and burying the bones in the garden.  Bonemeal is an organic fertilizer that contains phosphorus - an important chemical for plant growth.  Bonemeal is a slow-release fertilizer... I suppose the chunks of bones I put under the shrub will feed the shrub it's whole life?

The process was easy: 

1. Dig a hole in the garden where you want the plant.  
2. Put the bones in the hole. 
3. Crush and mixed the bones with the shovel. 
4. Fill the hole with water and let it drain
5. Put the plant in the ground.

And voila: win-win plants are fed organically and we have no meat waste!

I have spent the past three weeks with a group of university students at landfills throughout the region, dissecting loads of garbage.  Most of what we see is "garbage", but some loads, referred to in the waste industry as "residential self-haul loads", are full of treasures.

A residential self-haul load is waste that is brought to the disposal site by a resident, and is usually a result of some sort of clean-up around the home (spring cleaning, moving).  I am not all that surprised by what we find in these loads, but it does sadden me a little to see a product in perfectly (or near perfectly) good condition destined for the grave.

Our team has rescued many of these products, some of which have gone home with the team members, some of which I have claimed, some are stored in my husband's VW, and many more have made their way to the Salvation Army.  Technically we should not be doing this, there is a no-scavenging policy at landfills, but we are up to our elbows in garbage all day (literally) so I feel it is justified, and if nothing else, a reward to these brave students for their hard work.

I have tried to photo document all the stuff we take from the landfill, so take a look and tell me if you think this stuff is garbage?

Landfill project

Some of the research team at the Barriere landfill

My apologies blog followers for the scarcity of blogs posts lately, I have been working long days undertaking a landfill study throughout the region.  I have been traveling throughout the region with a team of six amazing university students, dissecting loads of garbage coming into the region's landfills.

Dissecting means that we are taking a bag of garbage and sorting it's contents into lots different categories (133 to be exact), with the fourteen broad categories being paper products, paper packaging, plastic products, plastic packaging, organic, textiles, rubber, metal, glass, wood, construction materials, hazardous waste, electronic waste, and residuals.

Thats all the time I have for blogging today, we are off to Lower Nicola landfill (near Merritt) today - bright and early 6:00 am.