Compost piles may not smell great, but composting brilliantly turn rubbish back into something useful, in fact it’s so useful that it’s often called ‘black gold’. In this article we’ll cover the the definition of household composting, ways that composting is fabulous for the planet, and a list of things you can compost.
Composting is natures way of recycling food scraps and yard trimmings back into rich, fertile soil. Household composting is the same principle only accelerated and in a controlled environment. Compost enthusiasts accomplish their task in a variety of ways and with a wide selection of tools including tumble composters, compost bins, and compost piles to name just a few. Three common types of composting are:
Backyard composting: Backyard composting utilizes a composting method to recycle kitchen scraps and yard trimmings into soil. Vermiculture: Vermaculture is the use of worms to aid the composting process. Food scraps and yard trimmings are fed to worm who eat them and produce worm castings or waste that is a nutrient rich soil additive. Grasscycling: Grasscycling is simply leaving grass clippings on a lawn after a mow. The clippings quickly dry out and decompose.
But composting isn’t simply great for your yard, it saves space in landfills and reduces greenhouse gas emissions too. Yard clippings and food scraps make up thirty percent of the waste stream. Each year the United States generates more than 34 million tons of food waste. As of 2009, only three percent of US food waste is recycled and reused. In a landfill, food waste quickly decomposes and produces methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming twenty-one times more than carbon dioxide.
Are you ready to try your hand at composting? The following is a list of some compostable items. A number of them are quite surprising:
Animal manure Cardboard rolls Clean paper Coffee grounds and filters Cotton rags Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint Eggshells Fireplace ashes Fruits and vegetables Grass clippings Hair and fur Hay and straw Houseplants Leaves Nut shells Sawdust Shredded newspaper Tea bags Wood chips Wool rags Yard trimmings
Although the process of decomposition and composting is simple, it has a big environmental impact. Now that you are familiar with three different methods of composting, and a few things you can turn into black gold, you may look at your kitchen scraps in a whole new light.
Sources:
http://www.recycleworks.org/compost/index.html http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/composting/basic.htm#todo