Composting for fun and revenge

Just about everything rots eventually. Besides three compost bins I use for gardening, I am composting just about everything I can get my hands on. I figure, why not make a hobby of letting stuff rot? Some people spend their non-working hours drinking, some like collecting NASCAR memorabilia. Composting makes just as much sense as anything else and it's cheaper.
My back yard is on a slope and subject to erosion caused by runoff from an apartment complex next door. In a combination of techniques I learned in the Peace Corps, I have built several terraces to slow down the water and let it filter into the ground. One of the terraces is made by digging a trench along the contour of the land and overfilling it with anything I can find, both mineral and organic, that will eventually turn into soil. It holds back the eroding soil and makes a great deposit for stuff I want to get rid of.
Among the stuff that has gone into the composting terrace: most of my old college textbooks; the old doorframes, sheetrock, plywood paneling and carpet pads from the house renovations I'm doing; used cat litter; brush and branches cleared from the property; all the cardboard packaging from anything I buy or receive by mail or UPS; tons of raked up leaves; old phone books and newspapers. About the only things that don't go into it are recyclables like plastic, metal and glass and anything I would not put into a landfill. Since I'm not going to use it for vegetable gardening, this compost heap gets stuff I normally wouldn't put into the compost bins.
I planted bamboo on the terrace to keep the stuff in place and make it look nice. Once it's all covered in leaves it doesn't look half bad. The amazing thing is the enormous amount of stuff I have put in the ground over the past three or four years. It keeps breaking down and making room for more. It has saved me the cost of renting a dumpster to get rid of the stuff I've pulled out of the house in the process of renovation. Even with the large number of trees on the property I've never put leaves out for the city to pick up - in fact I get leaves from the neighbors and use them too.
The advantage of doing all this is that eventually I will end up adding carbon content to the rocky, clayey soil so it will not only be more fertile but will absorb and filter water better, helping the groundwater and reducing runoff. All that carbon came from the air and if it ends up in the soil it is another couple tons of carbon people don't have to breathe.
I'll take pictures of it and monitor the progress of some of the slower-rotting components (like my old Organic Chemistry lab guide) and let you know how it goes.


UPDATE March 2007: Here's what the Financial Accounting textbook looks like after a year. The stuff between the covers approximates the financial accounting content that I have retained between my ears after about 5 career changes, none of which involved any accounting. The worm is a bonus and goes to show that some good comes of everything.







Here's a foolproof method of figuring out what to compost and what won't compost: throw it all in the compost and after a year fish out what didn't rot and put it in the recycle bin. Let God sort it out then let the city sort out what's left. Not much doesn't rot. Here's what's left after a year, and I see some of it came from the gigantic bolus of Christmas wrapping that went in back in December.


Highly secure way to prevent fraudsters from raiding your credit card statements and bank statements: don't just shred them - ROT THEM! Keep your compost bin in the back yard with your untrained Doberman so scammers don't raid it.




Not many people like these things but they are gold to a gardener: Sweet Gum tree balls. Get your niece to rake 'em up out of the yard as a penalty for some concocted offense like using your cell phone to text message her friends without your permission, and then use them for mulch in the garden between rows. They drain water and you can walk on them and keep your feet clean. After a year they break down but if you dig them in before that they keep the soil aerated.

UPDATE March 2009: Last fall we had a "Green" reception where I work, and they used compostable cups and napkins and stuff. I brought all that home to compost. They have been in there for 6 months now and the cups look good as new:
I will check back after they've been in there a year and let you know how they look then. I'm very patient but if people are putting green labels on things that aren't, they need to be busted.