The following are excerpts from an article written by Elissa Gootman that appeared in the New York Times Home and Garden section on January 2nd, 2013 which addressed the issues of composting in an urban and family environment.
- On the basics:
In Brooklyn, Vandra Thorburn has started Vokashi. For an initial fee of $15 plus $40 a month, Ms. Thornton drops off a plastic airtight bucket, then picks it up when it’s full.
- On the process:
Ms. Thorburn uses a method called bokashi, which is not actually composting but, rather, fermentation. (Bokashi is a Japanese term; the “V” in Vokashi is for Vandra.) The food scraps are “pickled,” Ms. Thorburn explained, a process helped along with bran that has been fortified with micro-organisms and that you are supposed to sprinkle atop each installment of food.
- On the advantage:
The advantage of bokashi is that you can put in meat, chicken bones, dairy and more. The downside of bokashi is that the fermented waste still needs to decompose, so it must be buried in the ground or tossed into another composter. Because I was using a pickup service, of course, this was Ms. Thorburn’s problem, not mine.
- On the simplicity:
I loved that we were able to put meat, dairy and pretty much everything else into the Vokashi; leftover cereal in particular is a constant scourge. I found myself using this container often when it was late at night and I was fuzzy on the details of which composter takes what. Sometimes I went too far: I knew that leftover tuna salad should just go in the trash, but I was feeling virtuous and pushed my luck, tossing it into the Vokashi.
