A pot of compost rested on one vendor’s table at the Cosmo Seniors spring trade show.
The table from Micks'd Greens (pronounced Mixed Greens) promoted a recently-opened business by full-time Prince Arthur School teacher Michael Lewchuk.
Lewchuk’s service supplies small plastic or stainless-steel compost bins for customers to save their organic scraps. He picks up the material once a week.
“I've been going since July,” he said. “It’s slow but steady.”
He has been composting for about five years. “I want to do anything I can to make the planet better.”
The composting process saves landfill space and “I hear our landfill is in some trouble.”
Composting provides top notch soil conditioner for plant and garden growth that helps retain soil moisture, breaks down heavy clay and binds sandy soils.
The collected dark and green organic material is placed in bins and mixed to decompose into the end product.
“I use heat-treated pallets for the bins so I can re-use materials.”
The Micks'd Greens brand of compost is a “hot compost.”
To get maximum benefit from the compost Lewchuk turns material in the bins regularly so the micro-organisms breaking down the green nitrogen and dark carbon matter work more efficiently building better nutrient compost. That builds up heat as the matter breaks down.
“It reaches a temperature of between 125 degrees Fahrenheit and 175 Fahrenheit.”
The composting process takes about a year to complete before he can sell the compost in bags or pots.
Lewchuk estimates compost volume is about 70 per cent of the volume originally placed in the bins.
The spring trade show exhibits spotlighted a range of interests from personal care products to baking, clothes, jewelry and woodwork.
The concession menu included awesome lemon meringue pie and apple pie.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
