Thank you to those who participated in Sunday’s SLOP TALK meet-up for youth compost leaders! 79% of our participating households include children, and we’ve heard from many of you that these kids are often the ones taking the lead on family composting initiatives. How empowering to have ownership of a project, see it through, and make a difference.
This past Sunday young compost managers had the opportunity to gather over zoom and discuss their experiences so far. One 9-year old leader, Kinsey Jackson, gave us permission to share some of her anecdotes and insights in this post.
A 4th grader at Central, Kinsey reports that she has loved taking part in the project and intends to keep weighing food scraps even after the Challenge is over. We wondered together whether she might find that weekly weights fluctuate in different seasons. Hopefully she’ll keep us posted. She said she and her family plan on using their compost to give nutrients to their tomato and pepper plants, and that the compost pile even gives some satisfaction to their dog, who enjoys the stray corn cob or two as a chew toy.
While Kinsey and her family have been having a good time on their composting adventure, it has not been all smooth sailing. Kinsey’s family had a bear ransack their compost and eat almost ALL of it! Luckily, that particular visitor has not been back, and the Earth Machine was not damaged. In terms of grossness, Kinsey reported that the ickiest thing she’s come across in the scraps pail so far was moldy produce. Even worse, one time nasty compost juices splashed up onto her face while she was emptying the pail and made her gag. Yuck for sure.
Asked if she had any advice to give to people brand new to composting, Kinsey advised them to turn their head away or hold their breath whenever they dump out the scraps pail. Helpful, practical, and learned from lived experience.
Until next time, Citizen Scientists!
