How to Save the Planet, Save Money, and Have a Cleaner Smelling Home.
In our striving towards a better world, I believe compost is the lowest hanging fruit in the flight agianst climate change and one of the easiest changes to implement now for a brighter, greener tomorrow.
There are few greater tools we have at transforming our landscape and social infrastructure than revamping our waste management systems, particularly as it relates to organic waste and compost.
What is compost?
According to Merriam-Webster, compost is a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land.
In essence, compost is the result of kitchen refuse and table scraps that have been broken down and transformed into soil with the help of other organic compounds such as dead leaves, grass clippings, wood mulch, sawdust, and paper, and it is applied to the Earth’s surface as a land amendment tool or used as a growing medium for plants.
Compost is often described in terms of green matter (nitrogen; most often obtained from food items) and brown matter (carbon; often from plant materials and paper sources) and it is the combination of the two compounds decomposing in unison with the assistance of air, rain, sunshine, and other natural elements that facilitate the breakdown process. In your compost pile, a green-brown matter ratio of 50–50 or 60–40 is ideal.
Decayed or decaying organic matter can be a variety of things — dead leaves from trees (brown matter); other yard waste that has separated from the plant/flora base (brown matter); old soil (brown matter); food scraps (green matter) such as eggshells, fruit peels and vegetable skins, coffee grinds, wilted lettuce, fruit cores, and more.
I like to think of compost as a multivitamin for the Earth. Many big-box and store-bought fertilizers only have a few vitamins and minerals in it (namely nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, otherwise known as NPK); whereas compost has calcium, iron, vitamins A, B, C, D, E, antioxidants, fiber, and whatever else you ate recently (since compost comes from our kitchen waste). No human would sustain on potassium and nitrogen alone, we need all the other nutrients to ensure a healthy functioning system and lifestyle. Compost offers that same healthy system to the Earth where many Home Depot fertilizers can’t.
It is commonly suggested not to compost meat, dairy, or fats/oil/grease in a home compost or a community garden compost setting, mostly for that fact that it takes much longer to break down and can attract rodents or other creatures. However, in municipal compost settings, this can be done under the right circumstances.
Why should we compost?
Caring for our soil is an act of love as it is the basis for which all sustenance stems from. Richer soils grow richer and heartier foods while poor soil produces nutrient deficient foods. I heard someone say in a talk a few years ago, “Rich soils grow rich people and poor soils grow poor people.” This sentiment is true when you consider where food deserts are and other places where there is an absence of food and food access.
Compost can be thought of as the ultimate recycling — taking something and returning it to its original form. For example, Banana peels and oak leaves can be composted infinitely to produce more soil in which new banana trees and oak trees can grow from.
Reducing our waste is the lowest hanging fruit in the fight against climate change. Organic materials in a landfill, including food waste, yard waste, paper, and even natural fiber clothing, are contributing to methane emissions and other toxins being leached into the soil, air, and groundwater contributing to global warming and climate change. Landfills create methane emissions due to their anaerobic environments, and essentially suffocates any input.
Compost has a very low overhead to get started. It is free as it is our waste and we don’t have to go far to obtain it, just to our kitchen. More than anything, it is becoming more aware of how we waste food and making a few small habit changes to implement.
How to compost —
Save your food scraps! You can’t have a compost without having items to put in the compost. I like to keep my scraps in a container in my fridge until I’m ready to add them to the compost. I recommend a container with an airtight lid to keep smells from lingering to the rest of the fridge; an old protein powder container, large peanut butter jar, and Tupperware all work great. When the container is full, empty it in your compost setup (see various methods below) or bring it to community garden compost drop-off site.
Compost piles, like people or a good pie, need time to rest and to cook. I like collecting the food scraps and keeping them in my fridge until I’m ready to use them so I don’t have to do compost work every day, and I can attend to the compost once or twice a week instead, which also allows the compost pile some time to cook.
*In addition to having a constant source of food for the compost, the act of saving your food scraps has multiple positive effects — reduce foul smells in kitchen trash can, which allows you to take trash out less often, which could save you some money if you’re not using and buying as many trash bags. If it is just dust, plastic film from whatever you bought, or other non-compostable items, it won’t smell. The trash still might be bulky, but if you recycle (which is where a lot of the bulk comes from in the form of plastic jugs, cardboard boxes, etc.), you won’t have to take your trash out as often.
Compost Method 1 — Toss & Cover; low amount of work.
This is the ‘lazy way’ to compost, but this method still returns vital nutrients and minerals back to the Earth, and will still save your kitchen trash can from filling up so fast.
Depending on what your food scraps are, you can just throw them outside for the Earth to take in or for the birds and worms to find. This is how my mom composts at her house. She takes her potato peelings, egg shells, and lettuce hearts and throws them along the fence line in the backyard. Next, she covers it with some dirt, leaves, or old soil, and moves further down the fence line. It’s not a significant amount of food waste (in terms of diversity of food waste and quantity) and we have not seen it attract unwanted creatures or pose any risk to the area.
For simple, already broken-down organic refuse such as coffee grinds, I always recommend people to just throw it outside on the grass or in their garden. I would recommend the same for tea leaves, wilted lettuce, and any fruit or vegetable peelings. Covering the compost with dirt or old soil encourages the microbes to start the decomposition process; however, I don’t find it necessary to always cover food scraps if it is just grinds or peelings because they usually decompose in a timely manner.
*Decomposition rates will vary depending on your location, the time of year, weather patterns, and how much work you put in for caring for the compost.
Method 2 — Compost Tumbler; low-medium amount of work
The compost tumbler is great for small spaces and for beginners! This is an easy method for collecting food scraps and keeping it out of reach for rodents. These are good if you don’t have a big yard or for a patio/balcony on an apartment. Tumblers are also great if you don’t want to do a lot of work or get your hands very dirty.
Compost tumblers are generally in the range of $100, give or take. The hard plastic barrel allows the food waste to be tumbled and aerated encouraging the food to break down (or in a compost heap, what would be called turning the compost).
I recommend spinning the compost tumbler every week to make sure the green and brown matter are intergrading enough and breaking down properly. After a three to six months in the tumbler, your food waste will be soil-like and ready for use in your garden.
Things to look out for: You’ll have to pay attention to the green-brown matter ratio. It’s very easy to add a bunch of green matter (food scraps) without balancing it out with brown matter (dead leaves, newspaper, etc.) in a compost tumbler. Please note that you will likely still find worms, grubs, or other small bugs in the tumbler — they are okay there!
Getting the compost out of the tumbler can be a little tricky. The best way I found was to put a 5-gallon bucket or large planter under the slide opening and letting compost fall into the container. You may or may not need the assistance of a stick/stake to help move the compost out of the tumbler and into the planter.
Method 3 — Heap it Together; medium-high amount of work
One of the most widely used methods of composting is in a heap or pile. The piles can look a few different ways depending on where you’re composting, what you’re composting, and how much space you have. This is good for a backyard or community garden compost, and can also be employed in large municipal compost settings.
A compost heap will be a small (or large, depending on volume of organic waste) mountain of food scraps layered between dead leaves and other brown matter, and covered with a thick layer of mulch or, depending on location, a loosely tied tarp to trap heat. Municipal composting facilities will implement this method lengthening out large amounts of waste into a windrow. A windrow is a pile measuring up to eight feet (~ three meters) high, 12 to 16 feet (four — five meters) wide, and as long as you need. I’ve seen windrows 10 feet long and 100 feet long; again it depends on the volume of waste you’re dealing with and how much space you have.
Note: A backyard or community garden compost can be aerated with pitchforks, rakes, and a few hours of human labor. When you start making long windrows, you’re going to need a tractor for aerating large piles.
This is how I’ve been composting for the last year and I turn/aerate the compost heap every week or every other week with a pitchfork, rake, and shovel. We’ve seen soil created in anywhere from four to eight months.
General Compost Tips
- If your compost is too wet, you need to add more brown matter. If your compost is too dry, you need to add more green matter. A 50–50 or 60–40 ratio is best.
- Your compost may attract creatures such as worms, grubs, spiders, and roaches. These are all fine to have in the compost; they are helping convert the food scraps into soil particles via digestion. Creatures you don’t want would be raccoons, mice, or other small animals depending on your region. They don’t hurt the compost, per se; they’re simply digging through looking for a meal and their rooting around prolongs the decomposition process. However, it is good for aeration. Please note you may need to add more green matter should such an occurrence happen to you.
- It generally takes three to six months to get soil from your compost setup, however, it could take longer depending on how much you’re throwing in the compost and how often.
- At some point, you have to stop adding new food waste to the compost and allow it time to break down. If you’re always adding new organic material to the compost and not allowing it time to cook, you’ll be waiting near forever to use your soil.
- Do not be discouraged if you do not get compost soil immediately. Making compost soil is not an overnight process, but it is well worth it!
Conclusion
These are great places to start, but by no means is this a bible or all-encompassing guide to composting. In my years of composting, I have found that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Compost can be easily manipulated depending on your region, green and brown matter materials, seasons, weather, etc. Compost is a living, organic, breathing thing and therefore has a mind of its own, much like other living, breathing things.
If you have any questions about compost, please ask them in the comments!
Thank you for spending some time here. To read more about the compost project, sustainability, and fashion, hit the follow button.
Like what you read? Consider buying me a coffee to support more work and becoming a Medium member to get unlimited reading.
And visit our shop at www.sewnapart.com. 🧵
