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SUSTAINABILITY>>
FARHAT KHAN USES
A WORM BIN TO
MAKE COMPOST SHE
TRADES FOR PRODUCE.
MICHAEL LEVENSTON
PHOTO. OPPOSITE
PAGE: JASON MAEHL
PHOTO.
ART OF COMPOSTING
YOU DON’T NEED A BACK YARD TO TURN FOOD
SCRAPS INTO FERTILE SOIL
BY CARLITO PABLO
Friendship can grow from just
about every imaginable place
and situation. For Farhat Khan,
one blossomed out of the compost
she creates in an indoor bin.
A few years ago, while Khan was volunteering
for City Farmer, a Kitsilano-based
group that teaches urban farming to Vancouver
residents, a woman approached
her and asked if she knew anyone who
could give her some compost. The woman
had a plot at a nearby community garden
but didn’t have a composter.
“So I said I could do that, and that’s
how I met her,” Khan says.
Since then, she’s been giving the woman
compost she makes, and in return, the
community gardener shares her produce.
“We have a really nice exchange,” Khan
says. “It’s wonderful, and I made a wonderful
friend that way.”
For more than three years now, Khan,
who manages a call centre for a venturecapital
company, has been teaching people
how to turn raw food scraps into fertile
soil right in their homes. Like many people,
she doesn’t have a back yard. She used to
live in an apartment and recently moved
into a condo. In these small spaces, she
has grown plants like geraniums and roses
using the compost she makes.
For composting, she uses the worm
bin that Vancouver residents can get
from City Farmer (2150 Maple Street)
for $25. Measuring 85 centimetres at the
base and 85 centimetres high, the bin
comes with a one-hour course on composting,
an instructional book, and 500
wriggler worms.
Khan’s raw fruit and vegetable
scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds, and
tea bags all go into this bin. But won’t
this stuff give out a rotten smell and
foul up a smaller apartment or condo?
Not so, says City Farmer executive
director Michael Levenston. When composting
is done properly, Levenston
explains, “it should be a nice smell, the
same smell you get in the forest.”
So far this year, City Farmer has taught
500 Vancouverites how to compost
food scraps that otherwise would have
ended up in the garbage and ultimately
the landfill.
The group teaches residents how to
manage their indoor bins, particularly
AUC ION
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