Re: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin
Hi Luke; Any wisdom to share on the best way to set up a vermicomposter? I'd like to start one and I'd be the type to make my own rather than go out and buy something ready made, but I haven't a clue about the realities of doing it. I have read some info on the web about it though. If you could share some of your first hand knowledge it would be great. Joe Luke Hansen wrote: It sounds like you're all talking about a kinda large-scale operation here, so I'm not sure how useful this will be...but I just built a worm-bin for the place I work, and have one at home as well...and I find that they work faster and better for my composting needs than a conventional composting bin. I crafted my latest bin out of untreated cedar siding leftover from a construction project. However, I suppose that for larger volume applications such as lawn trimmings, I'd second the pallet idea. Good luck, Luke --- Paul S Cantrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pallets are particularly useful. Usually you can pick up 3 for free and either have an open side or I had some leftover window screen, which allows air flow. Also, if you have room you can get 5 pallets and make a double bin...using a UU shape. On 12/9/06, Tom Irwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Robert, I use wood posts stacked like a log cabin. It´s open on one side. I don´t use treated wood anywhere. So avoid that poison. If the wood rots in time I replace it. Tom Irwin -- From: *robert and benita rabello [EMAIL PROTECTED]* Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: *[Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin* Date: *Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0800* Although I don't do all of my composting in a bin, nearly all of our household table scraps and the entire collection of waste from our bunny cage went into a black plastic compost bin. Please note the past tense verb . . . About a week or so ago, we had a blast of arctic air sweep through this area. Temperatures plummeted and with the outflow winds howling out of the east, windchills of -20 C lasted for two or three days. (I know that some of you further east will probably laugh at this, but for those of us who live near the ocean, -20 is pretty cold!) The moisture in my compost bin expanded as it froze, literally warping or shattering the plastic bin. The whole thing actually fell over this morning. I went out to clean up the mess and found the top third of the contents completely preserved and uncomposted (big surprise, it's been cold, right?), the middle third consisted of a singular mass of partially composted, frozen material, while the bottom third remained warm enough to keep on decomposing. But the composter is toast. I'll have to construct another one because I'm NOT going to use plastic again . . . What do the rest of you use for compost bin construction material? robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice The Long Journey New Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Pagehttp://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! MSN Messengerhttp://g.msn.com/8HMBEN/2728??PS=47575Download today it's FREE! ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- Thanks, PC He's the kind of a guy who lights up a room just by flicking a switch It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it. - Steven Wright We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. - Walt Kelly ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: NO Iranian Oil Bourse yet...
lol...breathing room, eh? Perhaps if we ever have to pay for oil in Euros, since it will cost the U.S. a whole lot more to do business, we'll all drive less, thereby freeing up the atmosphere for real breathing room. Whatever...this morning, Monday, Dec 11, Rick Santelli and Sharon Epperson on CNBC are both talking about Russia wanting to trade oil in Euros. So here we have it again. The talk is in reference to the weaker US$. Since this thing is hitting the major network airwaves, I have to guess this is in the works in a major way. Mike DuPree - Original Message - From: Kirk McLoren To: biofuel Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 1:46 PM Subject: [Biofuel] Fwd: NO Iranian Oil Bourse yet... enjoy the breathing room Maybe the dems cut a deal. Kirk MK DuPree [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: MK DuPree [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:57:58 -0600 Subject: [Biofuel] NO Iranian Oil Bourse yet... I searched Wikipedia regarding the Iranian oil bourse and found this link near the bottom of the information given there: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchivesid=a5EsYUqL5LLs Then I wrote to the reporter and asked the questions below. You can read his response--no Iranian oil bourse as of yet. I'll pass this along to CNBC and Mark Haines. Mike DuPree PS Well, I guess if I wasn't on somebody's list at the NSA before now, sure I must be now writing to some guy in Tehran, do you think? - Original Message - From: MARC WOLFENSBERGER, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:44 AM Subject: Re: Iranian Oil Bourse Hi. not that i know of. payment in euros are possible, not a rule. no official opening of the bourse as of now. cheers, marc - Original Message - From: MK DuPree [EMAIL PROTECTED] At: 12/10 11:39:40 Marc...can you confirm for me that indeed Iran has opened its' oil bourse and is trading its' oil in euros versus US$? Thanks. Mike DuPree Marc...can you confirm for me that indeed Iran has opened its' oil bourse and is trading its' oil in euros versus US$? Thanks. Mike DuPree ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. -- ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin
Hi Robert, Fred and all I agree with Fred about the cardboard, and that it's nice that you end up composting the box too. I've just made a composter with cardboard sides, or sides and back rather, the front is removable for unloading and is made of half a defunct wooden sliding door, quite thin wood. The composter itself is made of two bits of 1 x 2 metre reinforcing grid or whatever it's called, thin steel welded in a grid pattern with 6 squares. I cut them in half and trimmed back the edges to make four 36 squares, for the back, sides and the bottom, volume one cubic yard. The cardboard panels are wired on inside the sides and back. I stapled some bits of wood behind the back to connect a corrugated iron lid, hinged on, sloping to the front. First batch loaded on Thursday, temp at 65 deg C. Wood breathes, so does cardboard, and the corrugation provides some insulation, fwiw. If the material you use doesn't breathe the compost tends to gather water at the edges where it contacts the surface, it gets too wet and packs. But if the material breathes too much there's a risk of drying out the compost before the process is finished. There's less risk of it drying out if the bottom of the pile is in contact with the soil. We prefer an air supply from underneath, so we use wire-mesh bottoms for our compost boxes with a three-inch gap underneath for the air supply. We also build the pile around a bit of downpipe standing vertically in the middle, removed when it's all in, leaving a 3 vertical hole. Hm. That's a bit like an IDD gasifier stove. The other boxes are made of wood, whatever scrap I could find, similar design to the grid box. We do have a UU double box made of five pallets, but we don't like it, I'm going to cut it up for firewood and replace it. The main problem is they're too big (and heavy). Pallet boxes come out at about a cubic metre, only three inches bigger each way than a cubic yard, but we find cubic yard boxes much easier to work with, especially Midori, who isn't exactly tall - that extra three inches is three inches higher than she wants to lift the loading fork. No need to stick to square or cubic designs, an easy way is to make a round bin out of 36 chicken wire, say 36 across, held up with four bits of 2 x 1 tacked on the outside (they can also support a lid), lined on the inside with cardboard. That'll hold about 21 cub ft. Here's the basic New Zealand box design that probably most people have been using for the last 60 years in one form or another: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QR8.jpg Plan for a Small Bin Some comments: 1. You don't need such thick wood. 2. The corners are wrong: it's much easier to put the vertical beams in the corners that way, but then you make four corners to prise the finished compost out of instead of just two - those beams get in the way. Better to put the verticals outside the box, not too difficult to do. Actually there are eight corners in that box. 3. It's also not too difficult to build a decent lid on hinges, also worth the trouble. 4. We'd give it a mesh bottom and an air supply underneath. Of course you don't really need boxes, if you build them on the ground like Tom Kelly does (archives). The disadvantage of this, if it is a disadvantage, is that you more or less have to build the whole thing all at once, you can't build it up gradually by adding material as it comes, which is easier for most people. We do it both ways, a whole box all at once, or, not actually adding material as it comes, but adding it in batches, layer upon layer, with maybe four or five layers altogether to fill the box. This works well, but it's best to add the next layer while the previous one is still hot. A week later is about right. Re worms, worm compost is excellent, and there are many other advantages to using worms, but they're much slower than thermophilic compost, and they don't go very deep, only about 9 or 10 inches. For small volumes that come slowly many people prefer worm boxes. We do both thermophilic composting and vermicomposting. More re which here: http://journeytoforever.org/compost_worm.html Vermicomposting FYI, received today: I want to thank you for your wonderfully informative, concise and well organized web site. I run a small scale worm farm in Northern California, and I was able to find all the material I need to answer my customers' questions right on your pages. I will be linking many of your pages from my site. You approach the subject in an intelligent manner and at all levels of knowledge and understanding. Thank you again. :-) HTH. Best Keith Hi Robert, I have two bins at the moment. The first is the plastic high tech made from recycled bottles. The second is ultra low tech. A big cardboard box. Of the two I like the box better right now. That might change. I like the idea that when the box cannot be used for a composter I can compost it. fred
[Biofuel] Americans still wary of gene-altered food, study says
More like hopelessly ignorant, thanks to all the mushroom treatment (keep them in the dark and feed them shit), much more ignorant about it than Europeans are, eg. See: http://pewagbiotech.org/research/2006update/ Public Sentiments About Genetically Modified Foods (Dec 2006 Update) Full report (219kb pdf): http://pewagbiotech.org/research/2006update/2006summary.pdf - http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/12/07/100wir_a4genefood001.cfm Thursday, December 7, 2006 Americans still wary of gene-altered food, study says The Washington Post WASHINGTON - Ten years after genetically engineered crops were first planted commercially in the United States, Americans remain ill-informed about and uncomfortable with biotech food, according to the fifth annual survey on the topic, released Wednesday. People vastly underestimate how much gene-altered food they are already consuming; lean toward wanting greater regulation of such crops; and have less faith than ever that the Food and Drug Administration will provide accurate information, the survey found. The poll also confirmed that most Americans - particularly women - do not like the idea of eating meat or milk from cloned animals - a view that stands in contrast to scientific evidence that cloned food is safe. The FDA recently said it is close to allowing such food on the market. Overall, said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, which sponsored the survey, Americans are still generally uncertain about genetically modified and cloned foods. In the five years since Pew began plumbing American attitudes toward genetically engineered food, U.S. acreage in such crops has grown substantially. Today, 89 percent of soybeans, 83 percent of cotton and 61 percent of corn is genetically engineered to resist weed-killing chemicals or to help the plants make their own insecticides. Since most processed foods contain at least small amounts of soy lecithin, corn syrup or related ingredients, almost everyone in the United States has consumed some amount of gene-altered food. In this year's survey, conducted by the Mellman Group, only about one-quarter of the 1,000 adults polled thought they had ever eaten gene-altered food, an indication that Americans have very little in-depth knowledge of the topic, according to a Pew summary. Support for marketing genetically modified food has remained flat since 2001 at 27 percent, with opposition dropping from 58 percent in 2001 to 46 percent this year. The proportion of Americans who say they don't know if gene modified foods are safe has shrunk since 2001, while the safe and unsafe camps grew by about 5 percent each: 34 percent believe they are safe, and 29 percent say they are not. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin
Hi Joe and All, I built one out of some spare wood. It´s about 30 cm x 40cm with about 30 cm in depth. I use pallet wood for the top and bottom. The sides were screwed to four internal 2x2´s. Idrilled about (20) 1 cm holes in the bottom for drainage. I filled the bottom third with shredded newspaper, addeda shovel full of sand and another of soil. Sprinkle with wood ash to keep the pH up. I wet it enough that water came out the bottom holes. I found a local source of red worms and dumped a liter or so into the prepared box.I covered them with more shredded newspaper and started adding my garbage. I wouldn´t go much bigger in size as mine is no lightweight when full. If you need it you should go with two boxes rather than one big one. I dump mine about 4 times a year and start fresh with about 2 handfuls of worms.I wear leathergloves when I open the box as black widows seem to like to live on the lid. The environment must be kind of like the old outhouse but without the smell. As we have no real winter here I keep the box outside in the shade of thebarbeque next to the wood pile. If I see ants invading, it must be time to add water. Tom Irwin From: Joe Street [EMAIL PROTECTED]Reply-To: biofuel@sustainablelists.orgTo: biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSubject: Re: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost BinDate: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:14:21 -0500 Hi Luke;Any wisdom to share on the best way to set up a vermicomposter? I'd like to start one and I'd be the type to make my own rather than go out and buy something ready made, but I haven't a clue about the realities of doing it. I have read some info on the web about it though. If you could share some of your first hand knowledge it would be great.JoeLuke Hansen wrote: It sounds like you're all talking about a kinda large-scale operation here, so I'm not sure how useful this will be...but I just built a worm-bin for the place I work, and have one at home as well...and I find that they work faster and better for my composting needs than a conventional composting bin. I crafted my latest bin out of untreated cedar siding leftover from a construction project. However, I suppose that for larger volume applications such as lawn trimmings, I'd second the pallet idea. Good luck, Luke --- Paul S Cantrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pallets are particularly useful. Usually you can pick up 3 for free and either have an open side or I had some leftover window screen, which allows air flow. Also, if you have room you can get 5 pallets and make a double bin...using a UU shape. On 12/9/06, Tom Irwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Robert, I use wood posts stacked like a log cabin. It´s open on one side. I don´t use treated wood anywhere. So avoid that poison. If the wood rots in time I replace it. Tom Irwin -- From: *robert and benita rabello [EMAIL PROTECTED]* Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: *[Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin* Date: *Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0800* Although I don't do all of my composting in a bin, nearly all of our household table scraps and the entire collection of waste from our bunny cage went into a black plastic compost bin. Please note the past tense verb . . . About a week or so ago, we had a blast of arctic air sweep through this area. Temperatures plummeted and with the outflow winds howling out of the east, windchills of -20 C lasted for two or three days. (I know that some of you further east will probably laugh at this, but for those of us who live near the ocean, -20 is pretty cold!) The moisture in my compost bin expanded as it froze, literally warping or shattering the plastic bin. The whole thing actually fell over this morning. I went out to clean up the mess and found the top third of the contents completely preserved and uncomposted (big surprise, it's been cold, right?), the middle third consisted of a singular mass of partially composted, frozen material, while the bottom third remained warm enough to keep on decomposing. But the composter is toast. I'll have to construct another one because I'm NOT going to use plastic again . . . What do the rest of you use for compost bin construction material? robert luis rabello "The Edge of Justice" "The Long Journey" New Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Pagehttp://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
Re: [Biofuel] Diesel Motorcycle
Joe Street wrote: No doubt the crotch rocket crowd will be referring to this one as the 'Neanderthal' LOL chuckle No doubt. Let them. Neanderthals did one thing very well: Survive. And they'd better keep an eye on their rear view, because the Neander will give a lot of them a pretty serious run for the money. Now if they can get the price out of the stratosphere and down where regular people can afford it I'll buy one. Same with that diesel Kawasaki scrambler bike. AP ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin
Hi Joe, Keith and Tom have this information all covered, but we have a little website here in the 'Smoke that might also be helpful? One of our daughters set up vermiculture bins in her U. of T. rez, (a bin per floor!) transferring hundreds of our red wigglers. The kids have accepted the idea really well. www.city.toronto.on.ca/compost Jesse --- Joe Street [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Luke; Any wisdom to share on the best way to set up a vermicomposter? I'd like to start one and I'd be the type to make my own rather than go out and buy something ready made, but I haven't a clue about the realities of doing it. I have read some info on the web about it though. If you could share some of your first hand knowledge it would be great. Joe Luke Hansen wrote: It sounds like you're all talking about a kinda large-scale operation here, so I'm not sure how useful this will be...but I just built a worm-bin for the place I work, and have one at home as well...and I find that they work faster and better for my composting needs than a conventional composting bin. I crafted my latest bin out of untreated cedar siding leftover from a construction project. However, I suppose that for larger volume applications such as lawn trimmings, I'd second the pallet idea. Good luck, Luke --- Paul S Cantrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pallets are particularly useful. Usually you can pick up 3 for free and either have an open side or I had some leftover window screen, which allows air flow. Also, if you have room you can get 5 pallets and make a double bin...using a UU shape. On 12/9/06, Tom Irwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Robert, I use wood posts stacked like a log cabin. It´s open on one side. I don´t use treated wood anywhere. So avoid that poison. If the wood rots in time I replace it. Tom Irwin -- From: *robert and benita rabello [EMAIL PROTECTED]* Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: *[Biofuel] The Death of a Compost Bin* Date: *Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:01:49 -0800* Although I don't do all of my composting in a bin, nearly all of our household table scraps and the entire collection of waste from our bunny cage went into a black plastic compost bin. Please note the past tense verb . . . About a week or so ago, we had a blast of arctic air sweep through this area. Temperatures plummeted and with the outflow winds howling out of the east, windchills of -20 C lasted for two or three days. (I know that some of you further east will probably laugh at this, but for those of us who live near the ocean, -20 is pretty cold!) The moisture in my compost bin expanded as it froze, literally warping or shattering the plastic bin. The whole thing actually fell over this morning. I went out to clean up the mess and found the top third of the contents completely preserved and uncomposted (big surprise, it's been cold, right?), the middle third consisted of a singular mass of partially composted, frozen material, while the bottom third remained warm enough to keep on decomposing. But the composter is toast. I'll have to construct another one because I'm NOT going to use plastic again . . . What do the rest of you use for compost bin construction material? robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice The Long Journey New Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project === message truncated === ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
