Sometimes it only takes a small thing to create a great deal of pleasure. Behold my new thrill. To my immense sense of satisfaction, I am no longer throwing wads of garbage into the public land fill. My very progressive county, Howard County, Maryland, has made it easy to compost food scraps that used to go into the trash. The county has a curbside pickup program for compostable materials, available in my area. Here is a picture of their bins, artistically posed in front of a pile of compost.
Now all I have to do is collect stuff in a small kitchen container (lined with a biodegradable plastic bag) and empty it into a green can. The outdoor bins come in several sizes:12 gallon, 35 gallon, and 65 gallon. I could have had one identical, except for color, to my blue recycling can, but because there are only two of us living in our house, I got the smallest receptacle.
I enthusiastically told a friend about the program. She said, “I only have two slots for cans in my garage. I don’t have anywhere to put it.” I’ve got even less space than she does, because I don’t have a garage, but I decided I would make room for my new toy. Here it is sitting at the side of my porch being ignored by two raccoons. (Yes, the lid has to be on tight to keep them out.)
In the county’s directions for blue-bin recycling, they want you to make sure the papers, plastic, and glass are not “contaminated with food.” What a concept–food as a contaminant. I love being able to ignore that admonition with the green bin. Part of the satisfaction is that it’s not just for vegetable scraps. I can also stuff in paper products that can’t go into the regular recycling, including used paper towels, napkins, paper plates, pizza boxes, cardboard egg cartons, tea bags, coffee grounds with their filter, eggshells, bread, baked goods, rice, nuts and seeds, If I had a bigger bin, I could also put in leaves, sticks, and other yard waste. (I put those into big, heavy-duty paper bags or a separate plastic bin)
Now I’m having fun turning garbage into compost that can enrich garden soil.
On sale this month for 99c from Rebecca York, Escape Velocity.
Max, a space pilot who operates on the edge of legality, doesn’t know he’s risking his life when he picks up a shipment of contraband. On this planet, all the inhabitants are beyond ugly except for the gorgeous women raised for the interplanetary slave trade. When Max discovers the cargo is one of these slaves, he vows to save her. But he doesn’t know how much the woman who calls herself Amber is hiding from him. Attraction flares between them. As their sexual relationship turns steamy, the chase is on to escape the corrupt official who bought Amber. But the only way to ensure her safety is to terminate the man’s sadistic avocation. Passion builds as they rocket off to what could be Max’s final mission.
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NY Times & USA Today best-seller, Rebecca York, is the author of over 150 books. She has written paranormal romantic thrillers for Berkley and romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. Her romantic-suspense series, Decorah Security, is set at a detective agency where agents have paranormal powers or work paranormal cases. She also writes an Off-World series where each story is a science fiction romance taking place on a distant planet in the far future. She also writes the Unbound series for Changeling Press.
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