Disposal tip (to cut down on odor)!

[otto]

A couple weeks ago, I was cutting up beef and there was a lot of fat to discard. Other times, when I do poultry, there've been a lot of skin. In the heat of summer it doesn't take long for those kind of discards to start stinking in my outside trash barrel.

Anyway, when I was cutting up the beef I suddenly got the idea that if I dumped white vinegar (what I use to clean) over the discards, maybe they wouldn't stink and grow maggots in the trash barrel. ( I know maggots are actually a good thing, but..UGH!)

So I put the fat scraps in a plastic bag, dumped white vinegar over it all, closed it and put it in the trash. And it works!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

hmmm.  That's interesting.  I usually just quadruple bag it, and try to do it on the day before trash pick-up. 

Sp, do you have to completely cover the "throwaways" with vinegar, or can you just sprinkler some in the bag? 

 

[otto]

I use about a cup I guess. How much depends on how much scrap there is. Never any bone, I save them for my own soup. My trash is brought to the dump by a friend, and he only picks it up about once every three weeks.

 

[peaches08]

Great idea! I once threw the skins down the sink's garbage disposal...what an incredibly bad idea that was! Took forever to clear that.

What do you do with the bones? Boil them out with a little vinegar?

 

[otto]

I don't have a sink disposal thank goodness, I probably would have tried the same thing! I wonder if pouring vinegar down it would have helped. I LOVE white vinegar for cleaning!

Yes, I save the bones (turkey chicken and cornish hen thigh bones usually) until I have enough to make a reasonably big pot of stock, then, yes I simmer them with savory veggies and a little apple cider raw vinegar (to bring out the collagen in the bones) for about 8 hours. I then strain out the bones and soggy veggies and portion the lovely aspic stock into individual sized freezer containers. When I want a bowl of soup I pull one out, pop it in a pot and throw in a handful of previously cooked chicken (also kept in the freezer)

My soup gets better every time I make it. I especially like it with a thick slice of organic cranberry sauce placed in the bottom of the soup bowl before pouring the soup. (organic, because I can't find a regular brand that doesn't contain high frutcose corn syrup)

 

[peaches08]

I'll only have chicken thigh bones, but I gotta try this! Thanks!

As for the fantastically fatty clog I made, I used citric acid to help break it up. I thought I was going to have to call a plumber. That disposal will deal with raw bones leftover in the auger of the grinder, so I thought a bunch of skin would be a snap. Not so much!

 

[otto]

It's so worth it. I realized I had all these bones all the time now, it was time to learn how to make soup with them! At first I was adding noodles, but discovered I don't need them, and the cranberry sauce added to the soup at serving time is soooo good.

I got so fed up with Campbells soups, it took a while for me to realize that I was feeling sick and getting a headache every time I ate it, they add such nasty stuff to their soups now.

I love hot soup for lunch or a quick supper.

 

[furmonster mom]

That's an interesting trick! 

I can definitely see the benefit, especially if, like you say, your garbage has to sit for a while before pickup.

I usually put stinky scraps (incl. bad fruits/veggies) in a baggie in the freezer. 

But since I live in suburbia, our garbage gets picked up twice a week, so it doesn't sit for long.

If I lived in a more temperate climate, I'd compost the vegetable matter, and worm-compost the animal/meat scraps.

Unfortunately, it gets so freakin' hot here, that a normal vegetable compost gets too hot and ends up either dried up, or all the microbes get killed.  You have to keep a very large pile to get it going properly.  And a worm compost needs to be kept moist, which means the worms would just get steamed.  I honestly don't think earthworms can survive out here, even in well landscaped areas.

 

[goingpostal]

I don't often have meat I need to toss but I usually throw it in the freezer and toss right before the garbage man comes.  I didn't plan well last year once and ended up with maggots in the outside trash bin which was nasty.  Between my dogs and the mice I don't normally end up with too much to toss though. 

 

[otto]

Storing it in the freezer until trash day is a good idea, in most cases. As long as you can remember to take the stuff out of the freezer and add it to the trash. I suppose it would become habit eventually..

However it doesn't work for me. Freezer space is at a premium in my home, as in, there isn't any to spare. :lol3: Plus of course I don't usually know when my trash is going to be picked up. He does it as a favor, when he can.

 

[meranaldar]

I always just place mine in a bag in the freezer, then put it out the night before bin collection.

Meat and bones are pretty much the only food that ever goes in the garbage, everything else get worm composted. It is possible to compost meat, but you would need a decent sized system and be careful with it, high potential to go quite sour and stinky and/or attract rodents (supplemental cat food? 

).

Furmonster Mom, have you considered a worm bin inside? That's one advantage to them over a regular compost bin, very easy to keep indoors. Helps with both hot and cold extremes.

I'm not sure of the temperature ranges where you are, Mohave Desert sounds hot though. I've kept one of my bins outside (in the shade) in the summer here. This year we had a couple of weeks with max temperatures around 100 F or a bit above, I was away during this time, but when I got back they were doing fine. Usual summer temperatures in the low-mid 90's though. I'm using a tropical variety of compost worms, Indian blue worms (Perionyx excavatus), or there's also African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus Eugeniae). Too hot will still kill them, but they have a higher tolerance than the more the commonly used red worms (Eisenia fetida). Problem is they have a much lower tolerance for cold, so cold winters will kill them off.

From the sound of that location, it would probably be rather challenging to get it working well outside, but there are neat systems that work well indoors. I wouldn't try meat in an indoor worm bin though.