My goals for vermicomposting is and has been just to develop some good organic food/humus for my garden and flower plants. But it is obvious that many people have failed or been disappointed in their efforts at their DIY modes. So some of these people have resorted to commercial bought bins as a last reort and there are many out there on the market. Regardless of whether you diy or buy it would be best to learn all you can about this hobby thru other peoples success or/and failures and the best place to learn in my opinion is on youtube. If you are using plastic bins as I am the one most important thing is aeration provided you adhere to all the dos and donts of vermicomposting. There is no doubt plastic will sweat and hold moisture , too much moisture, so it will help you to not lock the lid on , leave it cracked and even leave it off on occasion for an hour or two to let it air out and the worms will thank you for it. The worms will alert you-once a lot of worms congregate near the rim I remove the lid or crack it for aeration and they soon go back down. My thoughts are you should not throw all your trash into the worm bins and especially not as is. Sure over time [if time is not problem] everything could be broken down but that is not what most of are trying to achieve. So the second most important issue providing you want to move things along a little faster is to break down any food scraps as small as possible before putting in the bin,, some do some dont. The smaller the food and more broken down the sooner it can be used. You should be aware though that they worms do not actually eat food-- it is the bacteria that breaks down the food that the worms actually eat. I mean after all worms dont have teeth so the food MUST BE BROKEN DOWN FIRST before the worms can eat it. So if you can grasp this thought this should help you immensely down the road of success in the world of vermicomposting.

oliver yes I'm a KD Circuspeanut - no have not tried that one. You might say I'm from Missouri. Also a note I forgot to mention- if you are chemical sensitive waterborne does NOT mean you won't have problems, nor does anything that says no VOC. That simply means that it does not have volatile organic compounds which are bad for the ozone layer. Everything I have ever looked into that had low or now VOC did have isocyanates, which are not bad for the ozone, just bad for you. In a former life it was my job to research all of this sort of stuff for a trade organization back when "non toxic" was the buzz word instead of green. I moved to Missouri then. As an aside my better half happened to forward me an interesting (timeley) piece, follows: Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person...

Yeah, something nice and boxy usually works well for slipcovering, but some covers are more tailored than others. I'd get a high end fabric underneath, in the hopes that some day it could be free. But it would have to be fairly neutral, especially since you want it to last. I hate sofa shopping so it darn well has to be timeless! If not slipcovering, I like leather because it can usually be wiped clean. I don't know where leather fits in on the eco-friendly scale, but GOOD leather lasts a long time and sometimes the most eco-friendly thing to do is replace things less often. I'd ask at the home decorating forum about fabric choices, too. Very helpful and knowledgeable folks there. http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/decor

slipcovered items tend to look sloppy pretty quickly. Ektorps have custom fit slipcovers so they stay in place better than the "one size fits all" types. but yes, I had to occasionally take off the cushions and re-position the cover. worth it to me since you can also take off that cover and wash it! what bugged me is that the seat cushions would stick out by the end of every day-- but I feel like that's a problem with just about any couch that has individual cushions. the only one that I didn't have to do that is a joybird with one huge bench cushion. there are also sofas with solidly attached cushions -- but then you can't have the option to flip if there's a bad stain.