Reasons to Consider Composting—and How to Get Started!
- Shannon Harts
- Jun 6, 2021
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 7, 2021
The first time guests visit the home my life partner and I bought back in December, they often ask about a black, barrel-like object in the left-hand corner of our yard. I smile proudly and say it is a compost bin.
I have been composting food scraps now since I received the bin as a birthday present in late February. Yes, it is a pretty unusual gift—but it is exactly what I had requested.
Sure, it may have been more exciting to receive a new fancy piece of technology, but I love how my composter is incredibly easy to use (no software updates required!) and it helps me feel like I'm doing at least something to address environmental challenges that are seemingly insurmountable. I've also been thinking more about how grateful I am for my neighborhood's natural elements including beautiful mature trees that produce refreshing shade and songbirds that chirp cheerfully since adopting a rescue puppy that LOVES long walks.
For today’s post, I’m just going to focus on reasons to consider composting and how you can get started today based on my real experience—no matter what your living situation! So let’s dive in (not into a compost bin, though, that would be a little icky!).
The Facts About Food Waste
When I think of all the trash collected in a community that ends up in landfills, I often imagine a huge mix of materials.
However, there’s a certain type of solid waste that makes up nearly a quarter (specifically around 22%) of all trash in the U.S.: You guessed it, food waste! That’s according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Food Loss and Waste Factsheet, which also states that around the world, food waste alone consumes about 21% of available freshwater.
In fact, EPA studies have discovered that food waste is the most common type of waste found in landfills today. In 2010, about 133 billion pounds of food—valued at about $161 billion—ended up in U.S. landfills (USDA).
Wasting food also wastes money. Reducing the amount of food thrown out can lead to reduced costs for trash pickup, buying more food than needed, and it can cause a missed opportunity to take advantage of tax benefits for donating to those struggling with hunger (and don’t worry, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act protects those who donate food from any legal liability) (Source: EPA).
What's even scarier in my mind is how food waste plays a massive role in fueling climate change which is leading to more deadly heat, raging wildfires, and sea level rise that threatens populated cities around the world.
Food doesn’t just take up space in landfills—it rots, and this produces a greenhouse gas even more potent than the infamous carbon dioxide: methane. Just in the U.S., it's estimated lost or wasted food amounts to the same greenhouse gas emissions as 32.6 million cars! (WWF).
Thankfully, composting can have many significant benefits for the planet. According to the EPA, these include improving soil health and agricultural yields, sequestering carbon, and decreasing the need for chemical fertilizers (especially for commercial agriculture—you can learn more about this from the vineyard manager of my family's winery by listening to the sustainability episode of the podcast I launched called Great Times Behind the Wines).
Okay, Where Do I Start!?
You don’t need a fancy compost barrel like I have—although I will say, I love mine! It’s the Good Ideas CWET-BLK Compost Wizard EnviroTumbler. I like how it is made of 100 Percent Recycled Polyethylene Plastic and it is fun to spin it to aerate your compost weekly (more on that later)! It was also pretty easy to set up (unlike this Miracle Grow composter that we first tried and that didn’t seem to be nearly as durable either).
However, if you don’t have the space for a big compost bin, if you don’t mind incorporating some worms into your composting regime, you can use a simple 5-gallon box! (NPR)
However, the best setup for a compost pile is to make it between 3 to 5 square feet because spreading the materials over a larger area gives the microorganisms more space and heat to do their important work of breaking down your compost ingredients (SFGate).
If you do decide to get an outdoor unit like mine for your scraps to break down, you will likely need a covered container in your home to put food scraps before you add them to your pile. This does not have to be anything fancy! I just use an old plastic container that I keep in our fridge, but you can use any old container such as a milk carton--you’ll just want to make sure it can stand up to getting a little wet from some of the food you might put into it, such as coffee grounds.
What Can (and Can’t) Be Composted?
That leads to the next part of the process: figuring out what exactly to compost. This list is actually quite lengthy—I feel like I’m learning more every day!
But first, it’s important to understand there are two types of “compost ingredients”: browns and greens.
Greens are your food scraps and are usually wetter—examples include the coffee grounds, egg shells, fresh leaves, and of course fruit and vegetable leftovers.
A question I initially had: can you compost moldy items such as bread?
The answer: yes! In fact, this food has already started its composting journey so it’s even encouraged to add it to your pile (SFGate).
Now in the “browns” category are much drier ingredients such as twigs and sticks, newspaper (cut into strips and ripped up), egg cartons, saw dust, old leaves, and dried pine needles.
Like me, you might be wondering why the browns are necessary since I initially thought composting only involved food scraps. The browns are a very important part of the process because they aerate the pile, or allow water and air to flow in a way that helps microorganisms do their job of breaking down the compost ingredients (NPR).
Here are some items you can’t compost, mainly because they will likely attract pests: meat, fish, oils, butter, dairy, and foods cooked with oil, meat, or dairy (NPR).
Also, I was wondering recently if my puppy’s poo might count as manure which can be considered a helpful compost ingredient. The answer is definitely no as animal waste can harbor parasites that will continue to live in your compost pile (yuck!) (Gardening Know How).
Also, many food containers or utensils that say “compostable” are really meant for special industrial facilities, so it’s best to leave them out of your home composting operation as well. (NPR).
How to Add Ingredients
Now that you’ve got your ingredients, it’s time to add them correctly to your composting site, bin, or container.
Thankfully, it’s pretty simple: you start with a layer of the browns and top it with a layer of greens (NPR). This is the recommended process whenever you'd like to add new materials to your pile.
It’s recommended to add more browns than greens at a ratio of 3 to 4 parts browns to 1 part greens (The Spruce).
You’ll want to add the moldy foods to the center of the compost pile because this area will heat up and decompose faster than the outer edges. Like other food scraps, it’s also best to cover moldy foods immediately with browns, cut grass, corn stalks, or shredded paper to prevent insects (SFGate). I’ve got to be better about this, honestly, because at first I just dumped my food scraps into the barrel and now I’ve got a bit of an insect problem. Live and learn!
After adding these ingredients, the time for your compost to be ready to add to your gardens largely depends on the weather. If it’s cold outside, it could take around 6 months—but if it’s hot, it could take as little as two months.
When Is the Compost Ready?
You can tell your compost is ready when it has a fairly pleasant smell that's woody, earthy, and almost sweet, rather than that of a dumpster (NPR).
The material should also be fine, spongy, and mainly homogenous—or of the same material and texture—like good quality dirt (dirt.org). If you still have many large pieces of food scraps or other materials in your compost, it's probably not ready. If there are only a few, you can separate them out by hand. The temperature can also be an indicator of whether your compost is ready or not--the center of the pile, which should be the hottest with the most decomposition happening, should be the same as the current weather temperature.
It's important to make sure your compost is ready because if it's not, it could rob nitrogen from the soil you add it to, harming plants' ability to take in water—thus doing the opposite of what you'd like for it to do! (dirt.org)
My compost is not quite ready yet because I've noticed it still has a pungent smell and many recognizable materials—to speed up the process, I've started flipping the materials more regularly to provide the pile with more oxygen that can expedite the decomposition process. I also think I need to break or cut materials into smaller pieces moving forward before adding them to the pile (dirt.org).
If you have a pile that is not in a bin but rather spread over an area, you just need to use a pitchfork to turn around the ingredients (and it’s ok to disrupt your layers this way--as long as they are in place when you first add your ingredients) (SFGate).
I've also noticed my compost is a bit wet, which means I have too many nitrogen-rich materials, so I have started adding more browns (carbon-rich materials) such as torn-up newspaper and dried leaves (The Spruce).
What If I Want to Cut Down on Food Waste Some Other Way?
If you already compost or just really don’t think you can work it into your current living situation, there are still many ways you can help cut down on food waste.
One that can also give you a warm feeling of altruism is donating to a food bank--you can find one near you by visiting https://www.feedingamerica.org/.
You can also get creative to use older fruits and veggies in baked goods and smoothies to enhance their flavor instead of sending them to a landfill (WWF). Check out websites such as Big Oven, Supercook, and MyFridgeFood for ideas to use ingredients you already have around your home. This could also perhaps help you avoid buying more unnecessary foods and ingredients—the EPA’s most preferred option for cutting down on food waste.
Finally, utilize your freezer so you can take advantage of delicious foods longer! Buy frozen seafood and freeze prepared foods before they go bad.
I hope these tips can empower you to cut down on food waste in the way that works best for your lifestyle. Yes, it’s tough to incorporate a new routine (especially if you are a busy working fur or human parent).
But if nothing else, I've found it's given me a hopeful feeling of doing something to help preserve our incredible natural resources. With modern lifestyles structured around commuting to workplaces in vehicles that burn fossil fuels and buying foods in disposable plastic containers, composting—or finding another way to cut down on food waste—can be a small yet significant way to ensure a better future for ourselves and generations to come.
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