Compost and prawns

Sunday evening Dave and Judy from next door visited for a few drinks and to swap experiences about both our recent overseas trips. Dave regularly travels for conferences and research about his business; that of composting. I mentioned that the Canning Vale Waste Management facility has a few residents up in arms about the pong it emits. I had wondered how it operates. How they make compost out of all the rubbish that goes into the green wheely bin. Dave has a business relationship with the facility and takes their end product. He explained that all the rubbish from household waste from several city councils is taken to Canning Vale and tipped onto a large concrete area where the large stuff that should never have been dumped as household waste is separated…gas bottles, printers etc etc. The rest is ground up in a big muncher and after a little breaking down (fermentation I guess) labels and paper and indeed anything that was originally living breaks down. This lot is put through a large screen which separates metals and glass and allows the rest to further break down until it is in a state to be used as compost. The residual metal etc is recycled.
Of course I did have three King Browns (800ml bottles of beer) whilst listening to his explanation and well may have missed out several steps in this explanation of the composting process.

Dave’s composting plant is near Mandurah about an hour’s drive from here. It is adjacent to Watsonia’s Pig farm from where a lot of the raw materials come. The flies are a bit savage at the moment, but it is hoped that the dung beetles will get into gear soon and reduce fly numbers. We are getting some flies here and also hope the dung beetles do their job soon.

A friend, Paul, gave us a tip on a good deal with prawns for sale and we went today to buy a 10kg box for $110. I asked my brother Graham if he also wanted some extra Cholesterol and we are to share the 10kg. He happened to mention it to his boss and I had to go and buy another 2 boxes for him. These prawns are not from the sewerage swamps of Vietnam. They are Western Australian sea prawns from Exmouth. Paul also mentioned a small kitchen tool which de-veins and shells prawns. I bought one and it works well.