It’s Not All Doom and Gloom You Know!

Well if it was, life would not be worth the effort. I have read back over my last few contributions and it’s moan! moan!, moan!, so this Month I’m not going to do that. This Month I will share me thoughts on Hot Composting. “Oh! this is going to be riveting”, say those of you who have bothered to read this far. You are now thinking of consigning this particular contribution to the compost but I ask you to bear with me.
Hot Composting is a concept that has been around a while but I recently used experience developed at the Centre for Alternative Technology with very satisfactory results.
Take One Old Fridge and have a professional remove the refrigerant gas without releasing it to the Atmosphere. You now have the basis of a hot composting unit using the insulative properties of the fridge.
Any fridge will do, old Chest types are best but may be too big for a lot of people. I used a standard kitchen fridge, putting the back to the ground and pointing the door end to the sky. Put a half inch or thirteen mm hole in the bottom to allow run off from the composter to escape and air into the bottom of the composter. Reform the old drawers and panelling from the fridge to act as a raised platform above this vent (about one to two inches of a gap will do). Bore a half-inch hole in the door and shove a half-inch pipe through and put a fine mesh over one end. This will allow steam out of the composter but keep flies out.
Now You’re Sucking Diesel. Unfortunate term I know, but once this is done and the fridge raised four inches or so off the ground you can now compost in a more efficient manner than before and you are making use of something that was going to waste.
A standard compost heap or bin takes up to a year to break down waste. This system can do it in around 6 to 8 weeks. It will require turning once in the composter and it can only compost in batches - i.e. it’s filled, batch is composted, emptied and filled again.
This Hot Composter can take foodstuffs as it is enclosed and therefore inaccessible to creatures that might be interested in waste food.
At the moment I am on my third batch of compost and the thing works a treat. My third batch contains mostly grass clippings and newspapers which I’m experimenting with as it may be a useful way of getting rid of some election manifestos and the European constitution if the French reject it. Oh! won’t my spuds be the better for it anyway.