(Austin, TX) Area friend Marie Christian, 24, spent one (1) hour in a free composting class last Saturday, and according to multiple witnesses hasn’t shut up about it since. She reportedly has been repeating word associations such as “fermented dirt” and “I wish I could live my entire life inside this two-chamber tumbler” for days now. According to Danielle Wyrme*, friends are starting to get sick of it. “Yesterday, she told me on five (5) separate occasions, that you can compost old beer. Like, that’s great Marie, but you have to at least let the topic come up organically or else it’s a bit heavy-handed.”

When we reached out to Marie for an interview, she responded by sending us a colorful pamphlet and a link to her gardening blog: http://www.greenthumbsforagreenerplanet.wordpress.com (for interested readers). “There are so many benefits to composting,” she began. “For instance, you can decrease your household’s waste, you get AMAZING nutrients for your garden, and you have an incentive to eat more produce!” Plus, we hear that you can get some nice, fresh worm poop out of one of those vermi-composters too – a real summertime treat!

“She always does this,” Danielle reports. “Last month she took an intro to coding class and talked about basic CSS and HTML for weeks after. Like, it’s cool that she is trying to learn a new skill, but I’ve been trying to teach her about the benefits of both coding and composting for a while now and she never listened. I mean, I majored in computer science with a focus in climate change reduction through the diversion of waste from landfills, so I already know a lot about the subject…”

Danielle was starting to get pretty boring at that point, so my colleagues and I slowly started digging into the ground to get away. During this burrowing exercise, we realized something important – although our cities may not have large-scale curbside organics programs in place yet, in the meantime we can each make a difference by diverting our own waste and turning it into something amazing for the earth. You know what, I should call my mom – she loves gardening, and I think she would be very receptive to the idea of composting!

*Names have been changed to maintain anonymity.

This article was written by Arlene Ellwood, also known as Bean, Lene Bean, and Cosmic Warlock of the Shattered Moons. Follow her for more on her, I mean Marie’s composting adventures on Twitter @ArlenieBeanie