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Every day, I strive to Make Energy CENTS from the Home to the Globe. Whether programming the thermostat to low temperatures overnight to providing comments on national energy policy drafts to opening discussions as to Energy COOL technologies and concepts, my efforts to Energize America to a prosperous, climate friendly future cross a broad spectrum.

Some of these steps were, well, almost learned in the womb. One of my earliest family chores was taking out vegetable scraps to the compost pile. That moved into dumping grass clippings onto the pile when cutting the lawn came onto my ‘to do’ chart. And, well, even into getting praise from adding neighborhood clippings to enrich our soil as I grew into earning a few $s cutting laws.

Composting and a larger picture …

All this began well before “global warming” became part of my (or the world’s) lexicon.  But, composting is one of those individual actions that can add up to something bigger.  Take the California situation,

Compostable organics make up 30% of California’s overall waste stream, contributing over 12 million tons annually to our state’s landfills. In landfills, this material undergoes anaerobic decomposition and produces significant quantities of methane, up to 80% of which is not captured by a landfill gas system.

Reminder: methane is 23 times as strong as a GHG as Co2.  And, by the way, there is all the energy to carry those organics to the landfill.  In terms of household waste, a ton of food waste would be 12-16 kilograms of CO2 in centralized disposal while household treatment would be about 5 kg.  Composting doesn’t eliminate that carbon footprint, but it reduces it.

Back to that household composting …

Composting kitchen scraps and yard waste has been simply part of life that continued into home ownership.

A few years after we bought our home, a near-by restaurant was torn down and the fattened rats were driven into our neighborhood. This force migration, sigh, I learned of due to rats feasting in that ‘casual’ compost pile, with the scraps simply thrown in … Aside from gassing the rats’ den, it was time to move onto something more significant.

My better 95+% wanted to abandon composting as did the county … that really wasn’t my preferred option. A neighbor’s move (a different forced) migration offered up a solution: a rotating compost holder. Great … in went scraps … in went grass clippings. And, well, flipping that compost holder was an amusing thing to do every so often. And, well, every so often, dumping would provide rich material for digging into the vegetable garden.

Ahhh … life was good … for a good five years … until …

I noticed some scraps on the ground beneath this huge contraption and discovered that something had eaten into the compost holder (which had a clearance of perhaps six inches above the ground). A little bit of searching and, well, a rat’s burrow within a few feet. Again, time for some poison and time for something better.

Some searching brought me to the Green Cone from Solar Cone. On a quick look, this looked really appealing. Rather than what seemed like an eternity for regular composting, the green cone is built to speed natural composition by raising temperatures and maintaining aerobic conditions which combine to encourage micro-organism growth. And, it can take all of the kitchen food waste — meats and fish and bread and dairy in addition to vegetable and fruit scraps. (Although yard waste doesn’t go in it …)

Oops … won’t that food attract those rats?

Well, the attraction (to me, not the rodents) grew because the green cone seals — there is essentially no order that is going to attract rodents. The only ‘exposed’ areas are underground and the design enables surrounding that exposed ‘basket’ with chicken wire to inhibit rodents.

Okay … sold … this sounded like a great path to keep composting while not feeding rats.

The box came in and there was this mesh plastic bin for underground and a two layered solid cover for above ground with quite clear and explicit instructions for installation.

Reminder to oneself: remember Boy Scout motto and ‘be prepared!‘.

The Solar Cone comes with direct instructions as to what sort of hole to dig in soil that will absorb water and how much bigger it needs to be in less absorptive soil. I went to dig that hole on a cold day in what I hadn’t realize was clay soil, with some big roots, and realized after I started that half my tools were still with a neighbor who I’d lent them too … a neighbor who was out of town. But, the hole digging had begun … after an embarrassingly long time and something like a cubic yard of soil, I declared ‘good enough’ … even though this was less than the directions recommended (okay, instructed) for clay soil. But, night was falling and having it ‘done’ was a priority.

Victory declared, the chicken-wire wrapped basket went in the ground, and the cover was screwed on, and the first dump of food went in. And, so the pile grew. The lesson, however, was following instructions matters: a heavy rainstorm and my compost ‘pile’ became a compost ‘bog’, not the best thing for that decomposition.

Sigh … hole dug … victory had been declared … not going back on that … but the neighbors forced the issue. Shortly after digging the Solar Cone in in a sunny patch hidden from us and our neighbors in bushes, up went a 7-foot high fence that eliminated 90+% of the sun on that spot. So much for “solar” of “Solar Cone”. Thus, the fence forced moving it.

And, this time, the work went on ‘prepared’ with the dug hole easily twice as large. Since then, not a problem with flooding.

Really, though, how does it work and would we recommend it to others?

Experience as to how it works …

1. The soil coming out is beautifully rich.
2. The process, with drainage of water, allows a compacting and will lead to our family-of-five needing to empty it perhaps every third year or so.
3. It truly does heat up … the ‘inside’ temperature is much warmer than outdoor temperatures (very noticeable on a sunny winter day).
4. Honestly, essentially zero smell. This is right by where neighborhood kids play and there has never been a comment. Walking up to put in materials, don’t recall ever smelling a bad odor. (Okay, as an experiment, tried throwing in the remains of a ‘celebration’ lobster dinner … 90+ degree days and there was zero odor, on opening the solar cone, of the lobster within three days.)
5. As per lobster shells, it really does seem to take all foods. (Although, better 95+% is truly not comfortable with this and, shhh, isn’t aware of the lobster (and crab) shell and fish skin and … experiments.)
6. The ‘no rodents’ policy really does seem to work well. No sign of any rodent activity.
7. Not intrusive — no visitor or neighbor has commented that it is ‘unsightly’ … as per the photos.

Okay, there have been some (minor) problems — as per above, the ‘big’ problems had nothing to do with the Green Cone and everything to do with failure to follow instructions. Honestly, the screwing in to connect the top to the ‘digestion basket’ is annoying (and screws have disappeared) and the strap holding the lid disappeared (again, screws …). Perhaps the most amusing ‘problem’: left the accelerator package in the provided waste carrier on the porch and the squirrels were attracted to it, with the package ripped to shreds the first night. Hmmm …

But, back to the question, as to whether we would recommend it: the Green Cone works, the composting is less intrusive and faster, and the Green Cone enabled us to continue (even expand) composting in face of a neighborhood rodent problem. From this household, definitely two thumbs up.

NOTE: Solar Cone graciously, at request, provided a Green Cone for review purposes.

Other Energy HOME posts include:

• Energy HOME: Calculating a confusing heating situation …
• Energy HOME: Crackling Hot …
• Energy COOL: Searching for the Perfect Flush
• Fans on the mind …