Here is my Bokashi Bucket, filled with apple and banana peels, old rice and macaroni.

Since writing about Throw To Grow, I've decided to give the Bokashi Bucket a try.

The Bokashi Bucket, in case you haven't heard of it, is an anaerobic composting system that ferments your food waste (including meat, dairy and bones) into rich, gardening soil. It's basically a 5-gallon bucket tucked inside of another one with a spigot that you can keep indoors in your kitchen.

Each One Teach One Farms entrepreneur Jim DiCarlo sells the bucket systems at Haleiwa, Ala Moana and Hawaii Kai Farmers' Markets. You can also find them at Kale's Natural Foods and the North Shore Organic Gardening in Waialua.

If you're handy, you could probably pick up two buckets from Lowe's, Home Depot or City Mill and make the system yourself, except for the activator mix (basically bran mixed with molasses and microorganisms), which is a more involved process. Jim sells a jar of the mix for just $5 at farmers' markets.

What I like about it, so far, is that it seems easy to use.

I keep my bucket on a little step stool in the kitchen, next to the trash can. Once a day, or once every other day, you take your food scraps, open the lid up, toss them in and close the lid again. When the food scraps are at about three inches, you take your jar of bokashi activator mix (basically bran mixed with microorganisms and molasses) and sprinkle some on top.

I wouldn't say it's completely odorless. Hopefully I'm doing it right, but there is definitely a sort of sweet and sour, pickled smell every time I open up the bucket.

It's not pleasant, but it's not horribly unpleasant, either. My husband says he can tell every time I open the lid, because he gets a whiff, but it usually goes away after we turn on the kitchen ceiling fan for a few minutes.

So far, I've thrown all kinds of stuff in the bucket — orange peels, avocado and banana peels, apple cores, celery, ginger, egg shells, old pasta, old rice, a whole head of lettuce that went bad, a whole box of granola cereal (that some ants had gotten into), a whole rotisserie chicken carcass and salmon skin.

The word "bokashi" has turned into a verb in our household. Now I say, "Are you done with this? Should I bokashi it?"

My bucket is about half full, so far. When you open up the bucket, you won't see any transformation of the food yet. Apparently that happens after it all goes into the ground.

So far, so good.

Some things that are good to know: You want to only add fresh, not rotten (or moldy) food or it will smell. It's a good idea to place a paper or ceramic plate on top to basically compress all the air down. It's best also to keep the bucket away from sunlight.

For more tips on using the Bokashi Bucket, go to eachoneteachonefarms.com/bokashi.

We have a worm composting bin, as well, in the garage, and usually I put on gloves to open the lid, move aside the shredded paper, before tossing in food scraps. Separating the worms from the vermicompost is a messy chore in itself (I make my husband do it). What's nice about the worms is that you can throw moldy stuff in there. What I find challenging is that we usually have way more food scraps than the worms can process (since we just started with a small starter kit, which took a year to grow into a small bin). The pros of the worm bin are that it can take moldy foods.

The bucket doesn't take up a lot of space, but seems to be able to handle the volume. So far it's not too much of a hassle to throw the food scraps in there. My dog sniffs the bucket lid with interest every time I open it, but she's not too interested in digging through it (thank goodness). I can't wait to see how this all works once the bucket contents go into the ground. Will keep you posted.

Here's a cool video from Kasha Ho at Kanu Hawaii explaining how she tried out her Bokashi Bucket: Bokashi "Unbucketing" from Kasha Ho on Vimeo.

Students in grades K-12, here's your chance to make the world a better place!

Safe Planet, in partnership with the Hawaii Department of Education, Malama Hawaii and other partners, is launching a new art contest focusing on Plastic Pollution Solutions.

Students are to pick one, single-use plastic item in their homes and to re-design it in an eco-friendly, organic and non-polluting material. They must explain what it looks like, how it is made  and how it is used through a photograph, painting, drawing, graphic or sculpture.

The contest is sponsored by the UN Safe Planet campaign. It starts today, with a submissions deadline of May 18.

Prizes will be awarded in three age group categories: Grades K-3, Grades 4-7, and Grades 8-12.

Winning designs will be exhibited at a local gallery in Honolulu as well as the Galerie Califia in Europe during the summer. Winning designs will also be sent to local manufacturers who will create prototypes of the eco-friendly products. The top winning design will be exhibited at the Safe Planet Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro during the Rio + 20 Earth Summit in June.

Download the contest flyer and rules at new.artmill.eu/hawaii-usa#obsah.

Design by surf-inspired painter Ned Evans.

If you're looking for a fashionable way to bring your own bag, check out Envirosax's water-inspired collection for the Surfrider Foundation. They can be found under the graphic series and cost $10.95 each.

These three designs feature artwork from the Foundation's artist friends Ned Evans, Robb Havassy and Melinda Morey (who grew up on Kauai).

With the collection, Envirosax and the Surfrider Foundation hope to raise awareness of the issue of single-use plastics in our marine environments.

Envirosax is donating 50 cents from every  bag sold to the Surfrider Foundation's Rise Above Plastics campaign.

Design by Melinda Morey, who grew up on Kauai.

"Our oceans, lakes and waterways are beautiful elements of nature we want our children and grandchildren to enjoy," said Envirosax CEO Belinda Coker. "We hope to inspire everyone to reuse. One tiny change is like a drop of water into a pond – it has the power of creating a big ripple effect..."

Two bills pending in the Hawaii State Legislature — House Bill 2260 and Senate Bill 2511 — propose requiring businesses to charge a 10-cent fee for every single-use checkout bag (paper and plastic) provided to a customer.

Design by California surfer artist Robb Havassy.

A percentage of the fees are supposed to go to a "natural area reserve fund" towards the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' watershed initiative. The bill does not include produce bags (which you use to put apples and vegetables in), newspaper bags or dry cleaning bags.

Maui and Kauai counties already passed a ban on plastic checkout bags, in effect for about a year, with Hawaii county planning to follow suit next year. Honolulu county is the only county without a plastic bag policy in place.

The Oahu chapter of Surfrider Foundation supports the bill, along with the Sierra Club and supermarkets such as Safeway and Times.

Last year, Washington D.C. passed a law charging 5-cents for every plastic and paper disposable bag customers use when buying food or alcohol. In December, the Seattle City Council took a different tact, voting unanimously to ban plastic bags and set a 5-cent fee for paper bags. Seattle initially proposed a 20-cent fee on paper and plastic bags three years ago, but voters rejected the initiative.

Whatever happens in Honolulu, if you want to make it a personal habit to bring your own bag, you can do so any time. Supermarkets like Foodland, Down To Earth and Whole Foods currently offer 5-cents credit for customers who bring in their own bags at checkout.

My favorite reusable bags are lightweight, easy to carry in a pocket or handbag (if you roll them up like an umbrella) as well as stylish. You can use them to carry groceries home or as beach bags and lunch totes.

Visit www.envirosax.com to find more designs.

Hundreds of plastic bags were pinned to the lawn outside of the Hawaii State Capitol on Thursday afternoon as a visual display in support of Hawaii's "Bag Bill" which proposes charging consumers ten cents for single-use plastic and paper bags. Girl Scout Diana Sellner, 15, of Troop 404, Kaimuiki, and fellow scouts, put together the display. Honolulu Star-Advertiser photo by Cindy Ellen Russell.

Would paying an extra 10-cents for that plastic checkout bag at the supermarket get you to bring your own bags?

Backers of House Bill 2260 and Senate Bill 2511 believe it will.

Unlike laws banning the sale of single-use, plastic checkout bags which went into effect on Maui and Kauai counties about a year ago (with Hawaii county to follow suit next year), this bill takes the strategy of placing a fee on them. A dime per bag, to be precise.

Backers of the bill — including environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, Sen. Mike Gabbard (sponsor of the bill), DLNR first deputy Guy Kaulukukui and students from elementary school to college — held a press conference Thursday afternoon to rally support for the measures.

For once, business groups like the Hawaii Food Industry Association and Retail Merchants of Hawaii actually support this plastic bag bill. Safeway and Times also wrote letters supporting the bill.

I asked Stuart Coleman of the Surfrider Foundation: "Why support a fee instead of a ban like neighbor isle counties?"

He says backers believe the fee is a better strategy than a ban (several bills were introduced in past years, with no luck). But in counties that have implemented bans, says Coleman, the use of paper takeout bags has gone up dramatically.

Paper isn't necessarily any better for the environment than plastic. It takes almost four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as a plastic bag (plus the shipping required to get it here). They also cost a lot more.

If you're willing to pay a fee (which will go for both plastic and paper carryout bags, according to the bill's current draft), the bill proposes that a portion of funds raised through the bag bill fees support the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' watershed initiative.

"This is a way to take a problem and turn it into a solution," said Coleman. "This is completely avoidable. All you have to do is use a reusable bag."

Washington D.C. passed a five-cent bag fee (on single-use carryout bags) in 2010, with the goal of generating revenue for cleanup efforts at Anacostia River. The "Skip the Bag, Save the River" initiative hasn't generated as much revenue as estimated for the river, but it's effectively reduced the consumption of single-use, carryout bags by at least 50 percent. It seems to have worked in Ireland, which passed a plastic bag tax in 2002.

It's an interesting idea. Right now, supermarkets like Foodland, Down To Earth and Whole Foods will give you a 5-cent credit for every bag your bring in at checkout. Unfortunately, Safeway doesn't offer it any more.

The 5-cent incentive doesn't seem to have much impact, though, with people jumping on the bandwagon of bringing your own bag to collect that credit.

And let's face it — only a small percentage of the Hawaii population is really going to bring in their own bags out of a concern for the environment. It just isn't happening. But budget-conscious shoppers (we pay enough just to live in Hawaii, don't we?) might just balk at the idea of paying an extra 10-cents per bag at checkout.

Then again, some people won't care about the extra 10-cents per bag.

Maybe this will work. It has the support of more backers than past bills proposing a ban on plastic checkout bags in Honolulu. Maybe in the next generation, more people, like the students who showed up to support the bill, won't think much of bringing their own bags to the store ( or gripe about how they'll pick up dog poop or line their wastebaskets).

The plastic bag monster, played by James McCay, made an appearance at Thursday's press conference supporting a bill proposing a 10-cent fee for each checkout bag. Photo by Star-Advertiser photographer Cindy Ellen Russell.

We do need to care about the proliferation of single-use, plastics in our everyday lives — from plastic bags to plastic takeout boxes, forks and spoons. It's not just about litter, but about the impact on our environment and our health.

Our lives are just too plastic, and if it doesn't end up cluttering the landfill (where it doesn't break down), it ends up in our waterways and ocean, potentially impacting human health.

If you haven't seen it, watch Bag It The Movie.

If you don't bring your own bags to the store, maybe you can start that habit now (it only takes three weeks to start a new habit). There are some pretty cool reusable bags out there, too. My favorite ones fold into a pouch and are easy to fit into your purse.

A random plastic carryout bag that found its way to the beach. Photo by Nina Wu.

Most Americans use a takeout plastic bag for an average of 15 minutes before throwing it away. Yet that bag, wherever it ends up — in the ocean or the landfill — will take hundreds and hundreds of years to break down.

If you support a reduction in single-use plastic bags, then tomorrow is your chance to show it at the state Capitol.

Two bills — HB2260 and SB2511 — are before the state legislature. A public hearing for the bill is scheduled before the Senate in conference room 225 at 2:45 p.m. on Thursday (Feb. 8).

House Bill 2260 would require businesses in the state to collect a fee for single-use checkout bags provided to a customer. Businesses would be allowed to keep 20 percent of the fees for the first year, and 10 percent of fees thereafter, subject to income and general excise taxes.

The Hawaii Food Industry Association, which represents many major supermarkets in Hawaii, actually supports the bill. In the past, the group opposed outright bans of plastic checkout bags which were proposed in bills in previous years. Safeway and Times also wrote letters supporting SB2511.

The Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation are rallying the public for support tomorrow.

Expect to see some 400 plastic and paper bags (the number an average person uses in a year) strewn over the Capitol lawn during a press conference at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow at the Capitol Rotunda.

Diana Sellner, a Girl Scout, and students from elementary schools and universities, will be on hand. The plastic bag monster is also expected to make an appearance.

Earlier this year, Hawaii county became the third in the state to ban plastic checkout bags at businesses. Hawaii county's law goes into effect next year. Maui and Kauai counties have already passed similar laws for about a year. Honolulu is the only remaining county without a plastic bag bill in place.

If the bill passes, it would not revoke existing bans on the neighbor isles.

For updates and more information on the "Bag Bills," visit the Sierra Club's Capitol Watch Opala Blog, Plastic Free Kailua's blog, and Kanu Hawaii's "5 questions (and answers) about plastic bag bills."

Is your car's mileage really what it was advertised to be?

Consumer Watchdog has called Hyundai out on its "40 Miles Per Gallon" claim about the Elantra in an ad slated to run during the Super Bowl. Hyundai has pulled the 40 MPG claim but says it was not influenced by Consumer Watchdog.

The group has a counter-advertisement posted on YouTube, noting professional testers at Consumers Union were only able to achieve 29 MPG in combined city and highway tests of the 2011 Elantra, 12 percent below the company's claim of 33 MPG.

Consumer Watcdog has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to re-test the 2011 and 2012 Elantra. Hyundai tested its original MPG tests, the basis for its EPA-certified claim of 50 MPG highway, 29 MPG city and 33 MPG in combined driving.

But real-world reports and professional driving tests report much worse mileage.

Scrutiny over MPG claims is growing after the owner of a Honda Civic hybrid in California won a small-claims court challenge Wednesday on the car's false MPG claims.

"Consumers who increasingly buy cars on the basis of high miles per gallon — then can't get close to the posted figure — are justifiably angry," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "Hyundai's omission of its touted '40 MPG' claim in its Super Bowl ads, after making a very big deal of it in earlier advertising, shows that the company is hearing the hoofbeats of consumer outrage."

Consumer Watchdog sent a letter Wednesday to Hyundai's U.S. CEO. You can read a copy of the correspondence here.

Last year, Thinker Toys used recyclable newspapers for its Earth Day window display. This year it will be using plastic bottle caps and lids, which will also be recycled in collaboration with the non-profit group, B.E.A.C.H. Photo courtesy of Thinker Toys.

Got plastic bottle caps?

Thinker Toys and Thinker Tots at Ala Moana Center are now collecting plastic caps and lids for art projects to be displayed in store windows on Earth Day, April 22. The plastic caps will be recycled in a partnership with the Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii (BEACH), a non-profit group which educates others about the dangers of plastic marine debris.

Creative director Ka‘ohu Cooper says last year, the store made a display out of recycled newspapers for Earth Day, and was inspired to go with plastic caps this year, especially with the mission of educating the public about them.

He hopped online, googled "bottle cap recycling Hawaii" and found information by BEACH, which resulted in the new project.

"As I researched it, I realized how damaging to the environment they are," he said.

When the caps end up in waterways and oceans, they can be ingested by marine life and more often than not become part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

One display will represent the ocean, according to Cooper, and the other will be an abstract art piece.

Cooper is looking for about 20,000 plastic caps (No. 2, 4 and 5) for the ocean display, and also about 20,000 for the abstract display. Recyclable caps generally include water bottle caps, drink caps, shampoo bottle caps and vitamin bottle caps. They need to be clean, with no metals inside.

If you're unsure which caps to recycle, visit BEACH's guide at www.b-e-a-c-h.org/recycling.html. Want photos with specific examples? Click here.

BEACH is a non-profit group that brings awareness and solutions to marine debris through environmental education and plastic reduction campaigns. BEACH volunteers also remove all sizes of marine debris from Hawaii shorelines.

Cooper says to put clean caps in a bag and label them with his name.

Thinker Toys and Thinker Tots (on Level 1 near Centerstage at Ala Moana Center) are locally owned retail businesses that sell fun educational toys, including wood puzzles, organic stuffed animals, craft science kits and games. Thinker Tots is geared towards the younger baby and toddlers, while Thinker Toys is geared towards older kids. Only the Ala Moana stores are participating.

The caps will be transported to the mainland afterwards for recycling. Visit www.b-e-a-c-h.org for updates on additional collection sites as well as recycling efforts.

Goodwill Industries of Hawaii previously collected bottle caps at four of its locations for recycling, but stopped on Dec. 1, 2011.

Folks who have been saving their caps for recycling can bring them to Thinker Toys and Thinker Tots at Ala Moana Center.

A mother whale and her calf swim in Hawaiian waters. Photo courtesy of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.

More than 950 volunteers gathered data from the shores of Oahu, Kauai and Hawaii Island on Saturday as part of NOAA's Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Count. The weather conditions for viewing humpback whales were excellent on Saturday.

A total of two whales were sighted every 15 minutes on Oahu, three on Hawaii island and eight on Kauai, according to preliminary data. Volunteers collected data from 61 sites statewide (except on Maui, where the Pacific Whale Foundation conducts an independent whale count).

On Oahu, most sightings seemed to occur at Kualoa Ranch, Pyramid Rock, Hanauma Bay and Halona Blowhole.

Scientific studies have shown the humpback whale population in Hawaii is increasing at an annual rate of about seven percent.

Up to 12,000 humpback whales are found in Hawaiian waters every year. Between November and May, the whales return to their birthplace after migrating as far as Alaska. They return to Hawaiian waters to mate, calve and nurse their young.

A few even surprised us by paying a visit to Honolulu Harbor at the start of the year.

Boaters and other ocean users are asked to remain vigilant during these months. The endangered whales are protected by both federal and state laws. The sanctuary is jointly managed by NOAA and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Two more Sanctuary Ocean Counts are scheduled to take place from 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25 and Saturday, March 31. If you're interested in becoming a Sanctuary Ocean Count volunteer, visit sanctuaryoceancount.org or call 1-888-55-WHALE ext. 253.

Students and volunteers at Kainalu Elementary School celebrate a boost in funding from Kaiser Permanente for their school garden program and a summer conference. Through Aina in Schools, the students can participate in an after-school Garden Club where they learn to tend to plants and compost, and enjoy a weekly salad bar in their cafeteria. Photo courtesy of the Kokua Hawaii Foundation.

Aside from the challenge of getting kids to eat their veggies, parents sometimes have to educate them about where they come from other than in a plastic bag from the supermarket. Many kids have no idea — do carrots grow on trees or peas sprout from the ground?

Making an effort to change all that is the Kokua Hawaii Foundation's ‘Aina in Schools, a farm-to-school program aiming to connect children to their land, waters and food for a healthier future.

A total of 12 public elementary schools on Oahu participate in the program, so far. Students learn how to garden as well as get a lesson in nutrition. Four schools have salad bars, and four participate in a fresh fruit and vegetable snack program.

Kaiser Permanente recently presented the Kokua Hawaii Foundation with a grant to fund two projects: A school garden food safety certification pilot program and this summer's Hawaii State Farm to School Conference.

Food safety certification for school gardens is a major hurdle for schools to get produce grown on campus into the lunch program, according to Dexter Kishida, Kokua's school food coordinator. So this is a first step towards getting some of those garden greens on to students' lunch plates.

Capt. Charles Moore, discoverer of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," dons a necklace made out of plastic debris by artist Noni Sanford, who combs Kamilo Beach on Hawaii island. Photo by Nina Wu..

Capt. Charles Moore, author of "Plastic Ocean" (Avery, $26) has dedicated his first book "to the generation, not yet born, that creates a world where plastic pollution is unthinkable."

Moore, 64, is far from retiring from his life's mission — to educate the public about the dangers of the "plastic soup" he first stumbled upon in the North Pacific Gyre in 1997. While most media have referred to him as the discoverer of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," he prefers to call it a "plastic soup" as a more accurate description of the broken-down bits and pieces of plastics as well as abandoned fishing nets floating below and above the surface of the ocean.

At the time, he was shocked by the amount of plastic litter in the ocean (seven successive days, over 1,000 nautical square miles) but didn't realize then that plastic was toxic, or "bio-active," with potentially harmful effects on human health.

His research vessel, the Alguita, has since returned to the Gyre numerous times to collect more data as well as to far corners of the world to document the extent of plastic dispersed in our ocean. In 2014 (the 15th anniversary of his discovery), Capt. Moore will return and spend a month to study a "plastic coral reef."

Capt. Moore carries a pouch of plastic debris collected from Kamilo Beach on Hawaii island.

Moore carries a pouch of "plastic sand" — broken down bits of plastic that have been ingested by marine mammals and wash back up on Hawaii's shores – to show people what it is. The plastic debris is driven by the currents in particular towards Kamilo Beach on Hawaii island and Kahuku Beach on Oahu.

He also has some examples of bottles that have been chewed on (what looks like the remains of a shampoo bottle, top of a cleaning bottle, tube of insect repellent as well as a piece of plastic improperly incinerated and then thrown back out into the ocean). Plastic bottle caps are also very common.

"Plastic garbage does not belong in the ocean any more than sharks  belong in municipal swimming pools," says Moore in his book. "Plastic is like an invasive species. Once established, it doesn't go away..."

Moore met co-author Cassandra Phillips at a zero-waste meeting on the Big Island, where he lives part-time. He was looking for mulch, and she was looking to collect different types of recycled plastic for orchid pots. In 2006, she received grant funding from the USDA Small Business Innovation and Research program to study recycled plastics as an orchid growth medium.

While talking, they decided that Moore should write a book. Moore has written articles for scientific journals and been in several documentaries, but this is his first book.

Here is more of my conversation with Moore last week (after he spent the morning at a beach cleanup at Kahuku with the Kokua Hawaii Foundation's Plastic Free Hawaii and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii) and before a book reading at BookEnds in Kailua.

Q: What made you decide to write this book?

A: I felt the urgency of alerting people to this danger because it is an imminent danger in a lot of different ways, not only to species in the ocean, but to us as a species.

Q: To our health?

A: Very much so. It's all around us. We wear it, we drive in it, we get our food delivered in it, we make our children's toys with it and feed them with it...We entered the Plastic Age in 1979 when plastic surpassed steel as a manufactured item... We're living in the Plastic Age, but we haven't really had the plastic conversation...It turns out plastic has properties that make it bio-active and we're just now discovering some of the effects of that...I'd been thinking I needed to get this out there (in a book)...

Q. Some may read your book, and some may not, but if there's anything you want the public to know, what would it be?

A: That we've entered the Plastic Age, kind of silently, and it's causing a lot of problems with our health and the health of the environment. And we desperately need to have a plastic conversation. We need to discuss where it belongs because it's in a lot of places it doesn't belong (like the ocean) and us...including those chemicals that are in us: BPA (Bisphenol A) and phthalates...

Q. Is your message reaching people?

A: Little by little, we're gaining traction...A Japanese translation (of the book) is coming out in August. I'll be touring Japan in August and September.

Q. So if we can't go out and vacuum plastic out of the Pacific Gyre from a practical point of view, what can we do about the plastic problem?

A: Stop putting it in...Packaging from the mainland is a large concern. Those companies that sell you things in the island do not take back the packaging. They make your municipal government handle all that waste. People wrap it in plastic to make sure it comes here in a pristine state...Imagine if an island demanded that products that came to the island had a take-back infrastucture, a container filled back up with pallets of packaging on its way back. That's what we need to do...Local consumption is the key, I believe, to stopping this plastic monster and getting it out of the ocean because you don't have to wrap taro or locally produced papayas in plastic...I'm an advocate of what I call a regional reliance inventory — that we make everything we need to rely on to live here, so people can get things locally, for energy use, food, clothing and basics.

Q: Part of this is your concern for future generatons.

A: Absolutely...It doesn't appear as if any trophic level is immune...every sized organism is eating plastic, including a whale that washed up dead on a West Seattle beach with surgical gloves, plastic bags and golf balls [in its belly]...No part of the pyramid is immune.

Broken down pieces of plastic, including a shampoo bottle, tube of insect repellent and improperly incinerated piece of plastic.

Capt. Moore is the founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. To read more about the Foundation's work, visit www.algalita.org. To see a full schedule of Capt. Moore's book tour, click here.

A total of 274 volunteers collected more than 3,600 pounds of trash from the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge and Kahuku Beach, where ocean currents "spit out" the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Photo courtesy of the Kokua Hawaii Foundation.