“The totally natural way to reduce, reuse and recycle organic waste”

Another customer question that I want to share with you all.

Q.  “Can the ZingBokashi juice be used on compost heaps to help break the heap down? If so what ratio should I use?”

A.  ZingBokashi juice can be used on your compost heap as follows.

• If your heap is dry and requires the addition of water to increase moisture levels sprinkle your juice over the surface – diluted 1 part juice to 100 parts water.
• If your heap is moist and does not need any additional water sprinkle the juice over the surface – diluted 1 part juice to 10 parts water.

Composta in garden corner

There will be times when your garden area is in full production and space to bury your fermented waste is limited or non-existent.

A simple proven method when this looks likely is to ‘store’ your waste in a ‘Composta’

Start by locating the Composta in an area close to or in the garden.

This will make for easy dispersal of the resulting compost material when ready for use.

Start by:

1. Adding a layer of fermented waste into the base of the Composta
2. Add a layer of dry ‘browns over the top
3. Mix the food waste layer with the brown layer below [a fork is ideal for this]
4. Add a further layer of ‘browns over the top and leave ready for the next lot of food waste.
5. Repeat this process till the Composta is full.
6. Ensure the lid of the Composta is secure between additions of material

Note:

Brown material can be either of sawdust/ spent potting media/mulchings /bark or soil.

It is important that these material be DRY when added and it is advisable to keep a stock on hand.

When your Composta is full or you are ready to use the material – lift the composta off and you will have a neat pile of great compost ready for the garden.

Recently I was invited to present a talk to a group called Woman in Farming about the role of ZingBokashi in waste management down on the farm.

A common issue was unpleasant odours from their waste water or septic tank systems Much of these are as a result of use of antibiotics and domestic chemicals –in particular some laundry products.

Compost Zing is proven as a useful tool in controlling odours in septic systems and often is combined with EMA or activated EM. This combo can be used in old-style septic tanks as well as in the modern chambered types.

Regular usage results in the following benefits.

• Significant reduction in unpleasant odours from both open and closed systems.
• Improved operating efficiency
• Reduced surface crusting
• Reduced sludge accumulation
• All natural
• The combination of all these factors will assist or help in improving the overall operating efficiency of all septic and waste water systems.
• An added bonus is having the cleaning period extended

Often when systems are overloaded smells will also appear when there has been none for some time.

This often occurs when family members or visitors arrive and septics systems can easily become ‘out of balance ‘ during this time.

Regular usage of either Compost Zing and or combined with EMA will improve the function of your septic systems.

The Kapiti District Council recently held a Greenest street competition where the idea was to see what street could generate the least amount of waste going to landfill over a given time. Participants had a choice of ways and methods to do this and these had to be approved by the organisers.

One street, Rainbow Court in Raumati had a number of residents elect to use ZingBokashi for the processing of their food waste and the comments below were contributed by Rainbow Court resident Glenda Robb.

Rainbow Court in Raumati's community garden

“Our Greenest St competition is over – and while we didn’t win the overall prize, we did get the best community initiative prize for our community garden. 

I have dug several buckets of my bokashi bucket stew into the garden and am just amazed at how fast it seems to break down. As I’ve planted up my spring garden now, I took my latest bucket down to the community garden where we had a working bee today.

The focus of the day was building compost heaps, so my bucket went into the middle of one pile where I am sure it will get things going in next to no time. We made three big 1m x 1m x 1m piles using wood chip mulch, grass clippings, horse poo and bokashi, watered it down, and covered it over with old carpet. We await the production of compost in next to no time!

At least one of the other bokashi owners is doing the same with her full buckets as she doesn’t have a garden in her own back yard.

We have several large plastic compost bins in the community garden where anyone can take their organic kitchen scraps and layer them with wood mulch, so some are bringing their full buckets down and putting them into our system. We find that is a better way than digging it straight into the garden, as often there isn’t a gap when you need to empty your bucket.

Then, once a month at our working bees, we turn the compost and add it to the gardens when the gaps appear.”

Greeners Action, the Hong Kong based distributor for ZingBokashi recently attended the Low Carbon Fair in Canton at the invitation of the Chinese Government.

Greeners Action are active in education in recycling issues in Hong Kong and as food waste is a big problem in China, attending the fair was an opportunity to introduce to the people of Canton [pop 10 million] the bokashi method as a way to solve their food waste problem.

Over 800 organisations and people were introduced to Bokashi composting over the 4 days the fair was held.

Member of Greeners Action engages with interested people-Low Carbon Fair Canton Oct 2011.

ZingBokashi in Canton, China.