How to compost in Austin.
Week of September 6 //
I don’t know about you, but this past week felt so long to me. Something about the three-day weekend really threw me off- I’m so glad that it’s Friday!
Here’s what I was up to this week!
How to Compost in Austin
I finally started composting! Yes, the wait is over. I overcame my uncertainty about how to compost and just started.
Before law school started, I attended an online composting class hosted by Austin Resource Recovery. The class was super helpful because not only did I learn how to compost, I also learned about the curbside organics collection that the city runs. That’s pretty necessary, because there’s almost no way that the average person living in a city has the time and space to compost all of the organic waste that they create.
To that end, I’m excited for my roommates and I to get a curbside composting bin. While home composting is a great thing to do and will definitely benefit my plants, it’s not a complete solution to the food and organic waste that humans create. Commercial composting provides the scale to divert so much organic matter from landfills.
All that being said, I’m excited about my composting journey. I’ve already added paper towels, a banana peel, dead leaves, cutie peels, dead grass, a brown paper bag, and a few other things to my bin. The key is to have three quarters “brown” material, like leaves and paper, and one quarter “green” material, like banana peels and apple cores. I’ll have more frequent (and visual) updates on our Instagram stories.
Trying to Live the Vita Activa
This week I finished Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato. It was published this year, so I was lucky to snag it from my local library a few weeks ago.
Mazzucato introduces the idea of a mission-oriented economy that unites the private and public sectors to address and solve the world’s most complex problems. She illustrates the concept with the example of the Apollo mission’s goal of putting a man on the moon.
The book is about as large-scale as it gets, so I didn’t think that it would directly relate to my goal to be a sustainable and engaged citizen here in Austin. However, in the last few pages of the book, Mazzucato mentioned the idea of vita activa.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt created the term vita activa to describe the idea that citizens should actively participate in the public sphere and public affairs. Sound kinda familiar? I couldn’t believe what I was reading!
Mazzucato only covers vita activa for a few paragraphs, but her discussion of active participation in public affairs piqued my interest. It made me want to learn more about different theories around citizenship and civic participation. And, it made me want to be a more active citizen.
That’s all for this week! I’ll be back next Friday with more updates from my life in Austin, Texas.
- College Football, Ariana Grande, and Water - September 3, 2023
- Livestock and Land Use: How Are We Feeding The Planet? Impactfull April 2022 - April 19, 2022
- What Does Voluntourism Look Like? A Case Study in a Cambodian Orphanage - March 28, 2022