As many of you know, my family and I are working toward being a zero waste household. One of the major ways that we reduce our waste is by composting. Composting tends to have a negative reputation with people who believe that it’s complicated or difficult. It may require a little planning and set up, but once you’ve started, nothing could be easier. Additionally you’ll find it’s well worth your while. Here are three reasons to love composting:
Statistics show that America wastes 40% of its food supply. A fair amount of this waste takes place in the restaurant and grocery industries, but it takes place in our homes as well. Composting is a solution that means no food has to go in the trash again. That container of leftovers that got lost in the back of the fridge three weeks ago? Compost it. Trimmings from fruits and veggies (seeds, skins, bruised parts)? Compost it. Fruits and veggies that went bad before you could eat them? Compost it.
If we are wasting 40% of our food, that means we’re also wasting 40% of the money we spend on that food. Composting allows us to recover the value from these items that we would otherwise have thrown away. Once the composting process is complete, we gain a great additive for our plants, indoor or outdoor. No more buying expensive bags of soil or fertilizer; your compost is full of nutrients and natural goodness.
Composting may be the perfect solution for leftover food, but it’s not just about food. Anything that is made of natural materials can be composted. Paper products, including tissues, paper towels, and newspapers? Compost it. Hair (human or pet), the contents of your vacuum container, and nail trimmings? Compost it. Grass clippings, leaves, and weeds? Compost it. And yes, you can even compost cotton clothing and leather (though they may take a while to break down). All this adds up to less time spent taking out the trash and less smelly trash cans.
Composting is pretty useful, right? So how does someone go about starting? Let me start off by telling you about the three ways we compost at our house.
The first stop for our food scraps is our chicken coop. Now this is definitely the method that requires the most space, effort, and money, so it’s not for everyone. But as long as the food is plant based and not rotten, into the coop it goes. Chickens will eat just about everything, and anything they won’t eat they at least peck into oblivion.
A couple times a year we clean out the wood shavings from our chickens’ coop, and all the droppings that go along with that. Believe it or not, chicken poop is a great fertilizer! The only caveat is that it has to be left to “denature” for a while before it’s useable. Otherwise it would be too strong and could damage the plants it is used on. So we have a pile next to our compost pile where we store the shavings until we’re ready to use them. While it can be expensive to start, and requires room outside (plus appropriate zoning laws in your neighborhood), raising chickens can be rewarding. My son loves to watch and feed them, and they turn our leftover food scraps into fertilizer for the garden and eggs!
So what do we do with the rotten food the chickens can’t eat? The next stop in our composting process is our worm bin. This type of composting is super easy, and you can do it even if you don’t have the space for chickens or a traditional compost pile. Our worm bin consists solely of a plastic tub with holes drilled in the lid, and some shredded paper for bedding in the beginning. Then we add food scraps in, let the worms do their thing, and voila! Worm castings (that brown stuff the worms produce from eating the food) are some of the best fertilizer you can get for your plants. All we have to do is keep them fed with scraps and keep them wet. Easy, peasy.
Finally, we do have a traditional compost bin. This allows us to create bulk compost for our garden. Mostly we put into this pile the soiled wood shavings from our chicken coop, any yard waste like weeds, and some cow hay. The occasional kitchen scraps find their way in if we have too much for the worm bin and the chickens can’t eat them because they’re rotten. This is where non-food items go to compost as well. Things like our tissues, dryer lint, and vacuum contents go straight in the pile.
There is information out there that makes composting seem like it’s complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. You need three things for a successful compost pile: green material (i.e. food scraps, grass clippings, or weeds), brown material (i.e. dry leaves, hay, or wood chips), and water. My best suggestion, and what we’ve found that works just fine for us, is to experiment as you go with how much green material to add in relation to brown material. If your pile is too dry, you need more brown material to retain the water. If your pile is not breaking down, you may need more green material. It can be super technical talking about exact ratios of nitrogen to carbon, but it really doesn’t have to be.
We keep our compost pile in an open-bottom bin made with pallets we got for free from local businesses, but this is not the only way to keep your compost. There are many different kinds of bins and tumblers that you can purchase online or at your local hardware/gardening store. An enclosed bin would be best for someone who lives in an apartment or condo where they do not have bare ground in their yard. But if you can, I recommend an open bottom bin because that allows the bugs and other organisms that do the work of breaking down the material to get inside. Our city offers compost bins to residents who want them. They are large barrels that have the bottoms cut out and holes drilled in the sides. You have to pick them up yourself, but they’re only $5. Maybe your city offers something similar.
Whether your goal is to be zero waste like us, you want to reduce your impact on the environment, or you just want to recover that 40% of your grocery budget that you would otherwise be throwing in the trash, composting is a simple and effective practice to start in your home. It can be as easy as a plastic bin full of worms, or as elaborate as a coop housing a dozen chickens. No matter how you do it, you can turn your kitchen scraps and other trash into a valuable resource.
For other ways to reduce waste in your home check out my article Reduce Household Waste in 5 Easy Steps.
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