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The SmartPlanet team is on a mission to green up our company, CNET Networks UK. One of our first steps is putting a Bokashi compost bin, aka CBIN, in our big kitchen/dining area for everybody to put their banana peels, soggy cereals and old pasta in. The bin (in the picture above, the one dwarfed by the two main bins) is supposed to compost the food waste using the bran-like Bokashi, a type of organic molasses that should also prevent any smell. We can't wait to see if it works!
While coming up with the idea was easy, the prospect of having to convince Sharon in Facilities to let us put in a compost bin, of all things, scared us a bit. It needn't have, as it turned out, because Sharon gave us the green light straight away. All we had to do was promise to act as the 'Green Police' and make sure people didn't put the wrong stuff in the composter. I took on responsibility for throwing the Bokashi bran in the CBIN every evening before leaving the office and getting rid of the compost once it's ready. The company from which we rent our fancy office plants wasn't too happy about us putting our 'office-made' compost in their pot plants, so I intend to send company-wide emails offering free compost. If there are no takers, I'll take it home myself -- you can never have too much compost.
Being a big, modern company, which predominantly consists of techies, gadget lovers and sassy media people, my hippy heart wasn't too confident that our compost plan would be warmly received -- let alone actually work.
So I'm elated to be proved wrong and to have my stereotypical prejudices crushed. Except for a few sarcastic comments, people's reactions were positive and maybe even a bit excited (okay, maybe not that stimulated). By the end of Day One there were already a few banana peels in the bin, a crisp, some lunch scraps and a couple of tea bags. Tea bags are not actually supposed to go in the CBIN, which I'd written on a note and fixed to the bin, but I was happy people were using it and it was only Day One after all.
As I expected, we had a few more teething problems. Despite leaving another note on the CBIN that read 'Dear Cleaners, please DO NOT empty this compost bin', they did anyway on Day Two. So now we have to start from scratch. Come on people, eat some bananas and let's make some compost!
The Bokashi bin is available from Evengreener and costs £30.
26 October 2007 02:58pm
Good to see, coffee grounds in particular annoy me and I know you lot have a very nice coffee machine...
31 October 2007 12:50pm
Great stuff! Just what i've been looking for...might even suggest it in my own place of work :)
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