From page 23
loving plants such as strawberries.
Bones, both meat and fish,
fish skin, heads and entrails,
and limited quantities of fat,
can be recycled through a
bokashi system (as can your
vegetable waste as well).
If you don't use a bokashi
system these materials, which
start to stink and attract flies if
not dealt with promptly, can
be buried in a progressive
trench which, when filled will
become a nutrition-rich
planting bed. To do this, dig a
trench at least two shovels-ful
deep, and enclose it in a dogproof fence. Starting at one
end, add the day's bones etc,
and cover them with a couple
of shovels-ful of soil.
Sprinkling the bones with a
handful of agricultural lime
before covering them with
soil will speed their disintegration. Continue to add
waste atop your earlier
contributions until you are
about a shovel-depth from
the surface, when you add
soil to fill to the top. You can
keep this material from
collapsing back into the
trench by placing a movable
board vertically in the trench,
propped in place against the
waste and soil with a stake.
Back in the house other than
the kitchen, miscellaneous
paper and cardboard is often
left out of the recycling
equation, however. If you set
aside a separate box for this
ENVIRONMENT
material, and flatten it before
adding to the box, you will be
surprised by how much can
be diverted from your
bedroom or office waste
paper baskets and recycled.
This includes used envelopes,
discarded magazines and
newspapers, flyers delivered
through the mail, the little
boxes which contain your
medication if you buy from a
commercial pharmacy rather
than have your drugs
dispensed at a state hospital,
the little boxes that contain
many dry kitchen products
such as herbs and spices, the
little boxes that contain light
bulbs and cosmetics, toilet
roll and paper towel cores,
and the blister packaging in
which you buy a myriad small
products such as batteries,
razors, USB sticks etc, not to
mention the packaging
attached to kitchen utensils
and many other supermarket
products.
A separate box can be used
to contain much clean plastic
and cellophane packaging,
including muesli and seed
packets, torn bank coin bags
and the like.
Thus, the only waste that
needs to be disposed of
municipally should be wet
contaminated waste;
essentially the packaging in
which one receives or stores
perishable products. This
25
www.sasmallholder.co.za
includes the polystyrene trays
in which one buys cut meat,
and its associated shrinkwrap,
bacon and sausage packaging, and used freezer bags,
used tissues and other
contaminated paper such as
paper towel or newspaper
used to wipe off excess fat or
oil from pots and pans.