I have to admit that composting was one of the parts of being green that always perplexed me. I kind of knew what it was, but what it had to do with the environment and whether or not I should be doing it were a mystery to me. Luckily we recently had Soil Month at work (one of the many perks of being an environmentalist professionally as well as personally) and we learned all about the role compost plays. So I'll share that with you.
I learned that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that 25% of garbage that ends up in the landfill (dump) is food and yard waste. That's a lot of waste! Everyone knows that we need to reduce the amount of garbage we have hauled away from our homes each day and composting is one way to do this.
I also learned that food scraps and yard waste have been used for centuries to improve soil quality. While it can take thousands of years of allowing fallen leaves etc. to cover and protect the soil adding microbes etc. and allowing it to build up good soil, this can be done in just a few years with composting.
So after learning all of this I had to figure out what it mean to Scott and myself and our little place. We love our garden and the outdoors of our home is really important to us. So if we could improve our soil quality and the life of our plants, reduce our waste and impact on the local landfill, and do it all without having to do too much changing here at home, we were all for it.
We received a counter top compost container as a housewarming gift from our friends Dipal & Cathy. I absolutely love it. It's from Cost Plus and super stylish. And it fits in with the bright white look of our kitchen. Plus it comes with it's own charcoal filter in the lid to combat odors. I made up my mind to start putting any food scraps I generate over the course of cooking - banana peels, coffee grounds, the green tops of carrots, strawberries, tea bags etc. - into the jar. Scott then takes it out with him when he takes out the garbage at night. It's kind of like learning to take out both the garbage trash can and the recycling trash can each night. We mastered that back at the apartment. Now we have an additional thing to carry over to the curb.
Our larger composter sits alongside our garbage cans outside which is a convenient place for it as it's in the garden and near where Scott takes the garbage & recycling out each night. We were already really happy about the fact that we generate more than double the recycling than garbage, and now with the composting system we've set up, there's even less garbage. The big black container was part of our Soil Month challenge at work and was generously subsidized by our administration allowing each employee to buy one for 50% off. What a deal! It locks too to keep our friends the raccoons out. You can buy a similar container online or check out local composting workshops or classes. Here in Los Angeles we have the Smart Gardening program which offers composting classes and sells bins.
After a few months of adding and equal amount of what is know as wet materials (food scraps) and dry materials (leaves etc. from yard waste) we're close to creating that "black gold" gardeners are always raving about to improve the quality of our soil & the life of our plants. All while lessoning our impact on our landfill & the environment as a whole.
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