What's the best option for disposing of rotten meat?

Carrie Sturrock By Carrie Sturrock The Oregonian
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on October 27, 2009 at 4:57 PM, updated October 27, 2009 at 5:05 PM

That guilt-driven compulsion to eat my kids' leftovers -- to be The Mommy Composter -- has abated somewhat now that I have a backyard compost bin. But I'm still a nascent composter with much to learn.

So I thought this was a good question from a reader: Let's say you have rotten meat that you can't compost in a bin because, to avoid rats, it's best to stick to things like vegetables and fruit scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells. What is the better option: garbage can or disposal?

I have wondered that myself. Throw it in the garbage can and it will surely create the potent greenhouse gas methane in the landfill. So maybe the disposal?

I called the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, which runs the city's sewer system. They. Had. Very. Strong. Feelings. About. It. That I can sum up in three words: don't do it. Portland has about 2,000 miles of sewer pipes, and fatty, meaty organic matter will congeal and can clog them, causing costly repairs.

"We really discourage using the garbage disposal for that purpose," said public information officer Linc Mann. "The less organic matter down the sink, the better for your pipes and the city sewer system."

So what to do? (Other than taking care not to let meat and cheese go bad.) Peter Spendelow, solid waste policy analyst at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, is a vegetarian who needs only monthly trash pick-up because his family creates so little garbage. So when he was faced with disposing of road kill raccoons near his house, he buried them deep in his back yard. Spendelow cautions that if done improperly, this type of composting can attract rats. You have to dig down at least two feet.

He isn't the only one that has mentioned composting in this way. After I wrote about Mommy Composting, a number of readers e-mailed to say they compost by digging holes in their back yard, too, with comments like this:

"I thought you might like to know of a very simple, quick and easy way to recycle biodegradable food waste. In fact, it's the oldest, simplest and most basic you can get -- just bury it. That's right, just take a shovel, dig a hole about 16" to 18" deep, you can go deeper if you want, put the waste in, fill it back in, tamp it down lightly, (not hard) and then soak it down with the hose to prevent animals from being able to smell it and dig it up.

"I've been doing this for years here in my yard in NE Portland. I keep a two gallon plastic snaplid container under the sink. I live alone, so it only needs to be emptied about once every 10 days or so. I use a stick to mark the last place I buried waste, and move it around my garden plot so as to cover the entire area. From a starting point in one corner of the plot, it takes about a year to cover the whole plot and wind up back at the original starting point. When you dig the same spot up again, what you find is beautiful, rich, dark, loamy soil. The bacteria, microbes, worms and insects have done a great job, and all you had to was a little shovel work. If your plot is smaller than what would be covered in a year, no problem, because the transition from food waste to finished soil is usually complete in about 3 to 4 months, especially during the summer months. Those little guys don't waste any time getting after your kitchen scraps. And, unlike above-ground or bin composting, there are no limitations on what items or substances you can bury, as long as it is truly biodegradable. This means that meat scraps, used cooking oil, eggshells, bones, and the like can go right in, and you'll still wind up with nice, clean, healthy soil.

"I actually prefer this method to above-ground composting because there's no odor, it doesn't take up any room, you don't have a giant black plastic wart squatting in your yard, it doesn't attract animals or other pests, there's no need to build complicated structures of wood and chicken wire, and you don't have to take a pitchfork out and keep the compost pile turned over all the time. And all you need is a container, a stick, a shovel, and a back yard with actual dirt. Simple, cheap, and fast. And you get perfect results every time."

-- Carrie Sturrock