I can hardly believe it, but I bought the Dove Cream Oil lotion AGAIN. The last time I bought it, I found it smells like a combination of half a dozen magazine perfume samples. It’s not an unpleasant smell per se, but it smells to me like Someone Else’s Perfume, so that I kept catching whiffs and wondering what/whom I was smelling. I finally donated it. And then yesterday, I saw some on clearance and went through the exact same thing again: “Ooo, the expensive lotion at a good price, and I love Dove!” followed by “Oh yes: the magazine perfume samples” followed by donation bin.
It’s just so surprisingly perfumed! I wouldn’t even call it “scented,” I’d call it PERFUMED. Like, if that were my perfume, this would be an incredible deal on expensive perfumed lotion.
How is this for an abrupt subject-change: I have a question about composting.
Long, long ago, when Rob was a preschooler obsessed with the Magic School Bus episode/book about water treatment, we took him on a tour of our local water treatment facility. There, they told us that after all the stuff is removed from the water, it is put into giant composting thingies, and later sold.
So this is my question: Does this mean that if we put stuff down our garbage disposals, we are composting it? It sounds to me as if that’s what it means.
As to the composting question, I would say yes and no. Yes, the stuff that goes into the sewer system does ultimately get composted, but it’s still not optimal to put stuff into our garbage disposals with the idea that it ‘will be composted’ by your city (as compared to having a compost bin in your back yard). First, it is energy intensive for the city to remove solid waste from the water. Second, the city’s sewer system has limited capacity and also the more stuff it processes the more wear and tear the system receives.
When you put your compostable food waste in a bin in your back yard, the process of decomposition happens in the way you see on the Magic School Bus where all of the enzymes and bugs come and break things down into useful elements for other living things. I don’t know what the city does with it’s compost or how they go about facilitating that process, but it seems to me to be the less preferable way to handle food waste. That said, I’m certainly not above running the dregs of cereal bowls and soup down the drain now and then.
I just heard our city is discussing municipal composting. At first I was like, why would someone need that unless they lived in an apartment? But then I heard we would be able to compost things that we currently can’t, like meat, eggs, and pizza boxes. But that’s a different thing that what the septic system does. I hope that answers your question.
I don’t know a single person with a sink garbage disposal here in Ottawa, but we do have city-wide organics collection. They accept paper food wrappers, napkins, dryer lint, yard waste, etc. in addition to food waste.
The main drawback is during the summer heat when your green bin can get stinky and even *shudder* full of maggots while waiting for weekly pickup.
I like the way your mind works.
I’ve been told by the plumber who comes to unclog us that most disposals aren’t really built to handle much. He then went on to describe various ingredients we had thrown down the disposal in the previous few weeks that hadn’t changed much: egg shells, peels, etc.. I gave up on using the disposal to reduce our household garbage when I realized that it would cost me a few hundred a year, at least, in additional plumber visits.
I’d assume it was just old plumbing in our century-old house. But my parents had the same problem in a house built in the 60s, so it’s not just our old crappy pipes.
If you put it in the garbage, it likely sits in a landfill in a plastic bag, thereby not returning it’s goodness to the earth. So, with those being your two options, I vote fish food is the better one (that’s how I think of things I feed to the sink monster, which is what I call the garbage disposal). the ultimate is the bin in the yard though. Which we also have.
I have a friend who works for waste management. He says not to put anything down the garbage disposal. All that stuff should go in the garbage as it helps everything at the dump decompose.
This has been a question of mine for YEARS! Love seeing these responses. I put EVERYTHING down the disposal and of course one day, when I tried to grind up a giant, old, leftover pot roast, (that I had forgotten about on vacation) the whole thing went KABLOOEY and exploded. And the plumber who came said the same thing: ” don’t put anything down the disposal. Nothing.” What the heck is it for then? So dumb. I keep putting things down it because I don’t understand that rationale. He said it was just for stray crumbs. Then it should be called a “crumb disposal.” Anyway. I don’t put whole pot roasts down anymore, but I do egg shells and ends of veggie trimmings and half eaten pieces of toast and chicken……I SHOULD do real composting. And maybe I will make that a goal of mine for 2015.
Lol, stray crumbs. I don’t have something hardwired and mounted under my sink with multiple fast moving sharp blades for the purposes of stray crumbs. I put everything down my disposal with the exception of fats/oils/grease and bones. The rest? Garbage disposal. I, too, kind of wish we did actual composting, but….
I love that this post gives me a sort-of-segue to post this, but there is a Radiolab episode called “poop train” that discusses what happens to the solids leftover from our sewage and it is fascinating! Gross, but fascinating!
On the lotion. Before I discovered that my skin is actually kinda sensitive to fragrance (I was aggravating my “dry” itchy skin by moisturizing with just anything, oops, which made it itchier, vicious cycle …) I used to like the idea of fragrance/perfume but couldn’t stand how it would follow me around all day long, rather than in pleasant unexpected wafts throughout the day.
so now you know why it was on super clearance, no one else like it either!
I just want to point out that if what you toured was the Water Treatment Plant (WTP), as opposed to the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) (Was it stinky? if no, then probably WTP) then what they’re composting at the WTP is not what you’re putting down the drain (although there’s a possibility of the solids removed at the WWTP being composted too). It’s two different parts of the cycle: source water ->WTP -> distribution system -> your tap -> sewage system ->WWTP ->someone else’s source water.
It was the stinky kind! I must just have the name wrong.
I read this and was like “this is why Swistle is a genius” and then read the first comment…DAMN YOU AND YOUR LOGIC I WANTED TO GET CREDIT FOR COMPOSTING! You’re still a genius though.