Our green cone is a thing of beauty this year with all the heat, provided a bad acid trip is your idea of beauty. I’m not sure what these things turn into when they grow up, but I know I’m not doing an Internet image search to find out:
And that’s just for a vegetarian green cone. Maybe in a carcassatarian green cone the maggots would have sharp little incisors and vertical eye slits?
If you want an ecosystem of your own, you can get green cones here (you need at least two):
http://www.seattle.gov/parks/scc/binsandbarrels.htm
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I got rid of mine years ago. It was just a big fruit fly cannon. An endless stream would come shooting out the top whenever we opened the lid. Glad it’s gone!
And if you think looking at one is bad, try harvesting the muck inside. It’s a stink you can’t easily wash off your skin. The reason you need two is to let the one compost for a year. City pickup of food waste is the best thing that ever happened! Happy to buy it back from Cedar Grove. Got rid of my (removed, emptied and cleaned) cones very quickly on craigslist, though.
We have a couple, neighbors foisted them on us and as far as I know they have never been used by anyone. I’d be happy to be rid of them. I suppose they do a good job if used as directed. Good composting isn’t a trivial job no matter what system you use. That’s why I don’t try, I just settle for a minimally obtrusive form of really bad composting. The maggot creatures I get are large and broad, with a kind of scaly carapace, never seen anything like them and don’t know what they turn into.
If I may quote from the SPU website: “If rats are a big problem in your neighborhood, you will have to take added precautions to keep them away from your green cones.”
I’m near Densmore and N 39th, and we share our little slice of heaven with Norway rats, racoons and opossums. Personally I prefer to let the SPU Yard Waste program “digest” my table scraps; I’m concerned about the health of my local vermin (and I use the word “vermin” in the cuddly-mammal sense, not in the hobo/rapist/substance abuser sense).
A few years ago, after I moved our vermicomposting box outside (whilst living in PDX) I encountered what I believe are the same larvae. After some chats with some fly folk, I suspect they were Robber Fly larvae.
Best to capture a couple, feed them to maturation and see….
Also consider Hermetia illucens, black soldier fly. Adults are medium-large black vaguely wasp-like flies that don’t eat, don’t have any means to do so. Larvae are common detritivores. You can do “grub composting” with special bins that give them a way to climb out and into the grub repository, from which they can be collected and fed to your pet lizard.
GREAT! Make way for the heared Wallingford Lizard Condos! …and more street maggots!
correction: “heated,” not “heared”.