THOUSAND OAKS : New Composting Bin on Display at Workshop

Thousand Oaks will unveil a chic new composting bin Wednesday at a free workshop teaching residents how to turn pet fur, food scraps, vacuum cleaner dust and grass clippings into rich garden fertilizer.

The twilight composting seminar will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Conejo Community Park Botanic Garden, off Dover and Hendrix avenues.

During the workshop, solid waste planner Carolyn Greene will display a state-of-the-art Earth Machine composting bin, which she described as a “beautiful green color, and of course made of recycled plastic.”

The new beehive-shaped composting bin is both more rodent-proof and more attractive than traditional containers, which tend to be squat and square and “don’t have good karma,” Greene said. Thousand Oaks will sell the Earth Machines at cost, $40 each. The city also offers a high-tech Biostack Bin for $59 and a no-frills Presto Bin for $9.

So far, about 500 people have taken the city’s composting workshop, which is offered regularly in local parks. Many of them subscribe to the free “Compost Comments” newsletter, a four-page tip sheet that will be distributed at the workshop Wednesday.

“We’ve gotten to all the environmentally aware people, so now we want to change our tactics and reach people who have never thought of composting,” Greene said. “We think the Earth Machine will go a ways toward attracting people.”